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ANIMALS IN MOTION
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From a photograph by th 1, Py VE
From a photograph by the London Stereoscopic and Photographic Contpany.
ANIMALS IN
MOTION .. .
An Electro-Photographic Ynvestiqation
of Consecutthe Phases of Antmal Pro-
qressthe Mobements
+ +
BY
EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE
Commenced 1872. Completed 1885
LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, Lp.
1902
Copyright, 1899, 6y EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES
CON MME IN Ins. |
PAGE PAGE
PREFACE ... a a nat a ae Be I THE GALLOP i is o Se yi coo HRS WH)
INTRODUCTION 60 ies 08 ae G0 9 THE RICOCHET See es <b = ec 205 |
PRELUDE TO ANALYSES ea Ys oe a ee r | Tae Leap ae at a ee eee + 209 |
(iri WALK “2s. it an va Bi es 19 THE BUCK AND THE KICK res x Ss ae 227
THe AMBLE ok He we es AN ed) CHANGE OF GAIT... xe ee a as i 2189
THE TROY... “0 sve 00 as 280 103 | Tue Ficur or Brrps vse 0 % a 237
THE RACK ox oe ne ne ee Big = Ng Recorps oF MOVEMENTS FROM OBSERVATION = woo ST
143 | APPENDIX Ob bcs Be be sor Fett 263
THE CAN1
ty
i
be
'
le
j
COMUNCOGUIE, OUP EEG SIE RAIEIOUN Sy
es
Number of Phases. | | | | Number of Phases.
Soe ae Animals. Series. Hore | Page, Beales of iAninale: Gates Fores iRase.
Laterals.| shorten- Total. Movement. |Laterals.|shorten-| Total. |
< | | ings. | ings.
THE WALK | Text ... es Be = 1 eT | TC) Oxen, Hogs, Buffaio, |
| Horse (“ Eagle ”) | a T2 12 24 25 Horse, Gnu, and Ass) — 7 A \) an 83
(‘ Billy ”) ; 2 HR | oe 12 27 | Lioness, Lion, Tiger, |
i gulf 2 — 24 2 209 Camel, Child, Cat,
,», (thorough-bred | | Sloth, Baboon re 9 — o | 85
mare “ Annie’’) 3 12 12 Ba |) Bin Tiger, Jaguar, Lion, | |
ee Galberonks) ies 4 12 24 36 33 | Baboon, Elephant,
ay (Cathy) _ Onn 6 25 Capybara | 2 6 8 | 8
ao (Chuaioa) Sas Gf ee 6 37
Pee boron = 3 6 9 | 39 | THe AmBLE| Text ... 538 yt | | 89
comparative Horse (“Clinton”) ...| 24 6 = | © | of
phases — II — II 41 % = 12 Sr 2 | 95
Ass 5 2 2 43 % ms 25 | 2 2 95
Ox @ || ni = 16 45 » (Sion) | a6 2 — 12 97
| Goat i 16 — 16 47 Elephant 27 2 = 24 99
| Hog ; 8 12 rz | 24 | 49 i ee Al ASO. | 6 | ror
Tiger, turning 9 — 12 12 51 |
Lion a. 0s 10 _ 9 ® | &8 THE Trot | Text ... i vee 5 2 iL || 11eR
| Cat, breaking rr 24 =|) BN aie Horse (‘‘Edgington”) | 28 20 — 20 107
Elephant 12 16 — 16 57 | (‘‘ Daisy ”) 29 20 a 20 | 109
| Bactrian Camel HZ | wo — | 16 59 | voy | COREE al) 36 12 12 Cyn oi
Dog (mastiff) 14 — 24 2 61 : 3 = 9 — 9 113
FS i ee -— 6 | 63 | ee eebeatuyan) a1 1) Tez 24 | T15
| Raccoon, turning...) 15 ez SS 20 65 | (los) || 32 = 22 22 117
Capybara _... veel) LO. 9 - 9 67 | Fe Ga iselig) . 33 _— 24 Ba |p sey
| Child, crawling oj U7) | a2 24 36 69 ee (an Dercum sand
| Man (athlete) eal as 7 7 14 71 “ Dusel”) — T 6 7 119
lee ye ve] 19 == |) 26 (| 4A} Oxaer ae 34 W@ | = Opes jeer
Baboon eso PC) 16 — 16 75 | Wapiti, or Elk 35 20 = 20 123
* vertically sus- | | Eland gas 36 12 = 12 125
jovnvsleydl reeihe wetle I) nae) == ff 1) ny allow Deer ... au 12 _— 12 127
|Sloth, horizontally sus-| Dog (mastiff ) 38 = 24 2 129
| pended na) 22 12 — 2 | Fe) ase ee 39 12 = 12 131
Bird (adjutant) eal 928 I2 — 12 81 Cat 40 T2 — | 12 | 433
bs ~ ee ae Se eae
: oe ae Se é i ee i
Number of Phases. + Number of Phases.
pent : Animals. Series. | Fore- Page. ganas of Animals. Series. Fore- Page.
Movement. aterals:|shortens| “orale Movement. Laterals.|shorten-| Total.
ings. | ings.
Tue Rack | Text ... ae eo ~ — = ne THE WORE ac a sh) = = —_ — 205
Horse (‘ Pronto”’) 4 12 12 24 137 RicocHEr Kangaroo _... vo OB=Z 13 — 13 207
( Egyptian Camel eee I — 16 139
Ti ” es —— 3 = 3 I4t
TOTSey GeeeLONtO}s)) mire 3 3 r41 THE Wear | Text... 00 eoi|| == B — 20) 200
ik |Horse(mare‘Pandora”) 64 20 -- 20 211
, THECANTER| Text ... ee a I = I 143 i 3 65 _- 16 16 213
i Iielorsel((aisy) aS 23 = 23 147 . = 66 12 | — 12 215
(i@imtons) mesa 12 = 12 149 BS x 67 — | 24 24 215
Ihxae - af = 6 = 6 151 » (Das?) a.) 68 20 — 20 217
|, (thorough - bred ; * ox 08) 20 -— 20 210
mare “Annie”) 45 12 12 24 153 ,. (mare“Pandora”) — 6 — 6 221
$3 _ = = 12 2 223
THE GALLOP| Text ... wh 3, = 13 4 17 155 Gatpers x aa) 12 _ 12 225
Transyerse- Horse (thorough - bred
Gallop ABOU etm) ime 46 22 as 22 171
,, (thorough - bred Tue Buck | Text ... oe 227
SBoOuguerm) mercies 9 - 9 7 AND THE | Mule (‘‘ Ruth”) 7° 8 — 8 229
., (thorough- bred Kick Pe 71 8 — 8 229
f mare Annie”) 47 16 s 16 175 HA af = 7 _ 7 231
(thorough - bred
* Bouquet”) ... 18 12 m2 24 177
i . (thorough - bred CHANGE oF | Text ... ee es ee — = = 233
i ““Bouquet”) <..| 49 12 12 24 179 Gait Horse, walk to trot... 72 24 — 24 235
Ep mare weno ean 4 trot to gallop 73 24 -— 24 235
dora”) See|| 5S) — 24 24 181 i rack to gallop 74 20 —- 20 235
Pen (coil Sas) eran beens — 24 24 181 fe recovery from
4 Buffalo (or Bison) 52 16 -- 16 183 a leap al) afl 24 — 24 235
p Goat ... ae 53 2 _ 24 185
i Bactrian Camel 54 20 — 20 187
i Gate ge. me aa OM yt 12 _ 12 189 Tue Fricut’ Text ... nee eet I = I 237
; Rotatory- Dog (racing-hound) 56 12 iz 24 189 or Birps _ Pigeon a eh 12 12 24 239
Gallop » (mastiff) 57 8 8 16 1QI . nee Be) | abe 12 12 24 241
Y Fallow Deer ... 58 9 9 193 Vulture 7 sah le pbs 18 — 18 243
, Wapiti (or Elk) 59 20 — 20 195 Sulphur-crested
| Fallow Deer ... 4 60 12 — 12 197 cockatoo 79 2a — | 24 245
Antelope F 61 12 — 12 199 , a 80 24 -- 2 247
Tue GALLOP) Cat, Bactrian Camel, : 6 81 — 20 20 249
Comparative Dog,Raccoon, Wapiti, “ i = 6 joi) 26 251
Bear, Goat, Buffalo, 8 A = = 7 7 253
. Hog... a oo 9 — 9 201
: Dogs, Cat, Buffalo,
a Goat, Wapiti, Bac- THE FLYING Ostrich ne Pe s2 12 12 24 255
a trian Camel eo 6 3 9 203 RUN |
x
4
i
PRA i.
In the spring of the year 1872, while the author was
directing the photographic surveys of the United States
Government on the Pacific Coast, there was revived in
the city of San Francisco a controversy in regard to
animal locomotion, which we may infer, on the authority
of Plato, was warmly argued by the ancient Egyptians,
and which probably had its origin in the studio of the
primitive artist when he submitted to a group of critical
friends his first etching of a mammoth crushing through
the forest, or of a reindeer grazing on the plains.
In this modern instance, the principal subject of dispute
was the possibility of a horse, while trotting—even at the
height of his speed—having all four of his feet, at any
portion of his stride, simultaneously free from contact with
the ground.
The attention of the author was directed to this
controversy, and he immediately resolved to attempt its
settlement.
The problem before him was, to obtain a sufficiently
well-developed and contrasted image on a wet collodion
plate, after an exposure of so brief a duration that a horse’s
foot, moving with a velocity of more than thirty yards in a
second of time, should be photographed with its outlines
practically sharp.
In those days the rapid dry process—by the use of
which such an operation is now easily accomplished—had
not been discovered. Every photographer was, in a great
measure, his own chemist; he prepared his own dipping
baths, made his own collodion, coated and developed his
own plates, and frequently manufactured the chemicals
necessary for his work. All this involved a vast amount
of tedious and careful manipulation from which the present
generation is, happily, relieved.
Having constructed some special exposing apparatus,
and bestowed more than usual care in the preparation of
the materials he was accustomed to use for ordinarily quick
work, the author commenced his investigation on the race-
track at Sacramento, California, in May, 1872, where he’in
a few days made several negatives of a celebrated horse,
named Occident, while trotting, laterally, in front of his
B
j
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oat
to
camera, at rates of speed varying from two minutes and
twenty-five seconds to two minutes and eighteen seconds
per mile.
The photographs resulting from this experiment were
sufficiently sharp to give a recognizable silhouette portrait
of the driver, and some of them exhibited the horse with
all four of his feet clearly lifted, at the same time, above
the surface of the ground.
So far as the immediate point at issue was concerned,
the object of the experiment was accomplished, and the
question settled for once and for all time in favour of
those who argued for a period of unsupported transit.
Each of the photographs made at this time illustrated
a more or less different phase of the trotting action.
Selecting a number of these, the author endeavoured to
arrange the consecutive phases of a complete stride; this,
however, in consequence of the irregularity of their inter-
vals, he was unable to satisfactorily accomplish.
It then occurred to him that a series of photographic
images made in rapid succession at properly regulated
intervals of time, or of distance, would definitely set at
rest the many existing theories and conflicting opinions
upon animal movements generally.
Having submitted his plans to Mr. Leland Stanford,
who owned a number of thorough-breds, and first-class
trotting horses, the author secured that gentleman’s co-
operation for a continuance of the researches at his stock-
farm—now the site of the University—at Palo Alto.
His official and other duties, requiring absences from
the city on expeditions sometimes extending over several
ANIMALS IN MOTION.
months at a time, prevented continuous attention to the
investigation, but in the meanwhile he devised a system
for obtaining a succession of automatic exposures at inter-
vals of time, which could be regulated at discretion.
The apparatus used for this initiatory work included a
motor-clock for making and breaking electric circuits,
which is briefly described in the “ Proceedings of the
Royal Institution of Great Britain,” March 13, 1882, and
will be, with the other arrangements, explained in detail
further on.
Experiments were carried on from time to time as
Opportunity permitted; they were, however, principally
for private or personal use, and it was not until 1878
that the results of any of them were published.
In that year the author deposited in the Library of
Congress at Washington a number of sheets of photo-
graphs, each one of which illustrated several equidistant
consecutive phases of one complete stride of a horse
while walking, trotting, galloping, and so forth; they
were published with the general title of “The Horse in
Motion.”
Some of these photographs found their way to distant
parts of the world, and were reproduced and commented
upon in the Sccextefic American (New York), October 19,
1878; La Nature (Paris), December 14, 1878; Berliner
Fremdenblatt (Berlin), April 26, 1879; Wrener Landwirth-
schaftliche Zeitung (Vienna), April 26, 1879; The Field
(London), June 28, 1879, and many other journals and
magazines.
Each of the cameras used at this time had two lenses,
JETS E SAM CTE, 3
and made stereoscopic pictures. Selecting from these
stereographs a suitable number of phases to reconstitute
a full stride, he placed the appropriate halves of each,
respectively, in one of the scientific toys called the
zoetrope, or the wheel of life—an instrument originated
by the Belgian physicist Plateau, to demonstrate the
persistency of vision. These two zoetropes were geared,
and caused to revolve at the same rate of speed; the
respective halves of the stereographs were made simul-
taneously visible, by means of mirrors
arranged on the
principle of Wheatstone’s reflecting stereoscope—succes-
sively and intermittently, through the perforations in the
cylinders of the instruments, with the result of a very
satisfactory reproduction of an apparently solid miniature
horse trotting, and of another galloping.
Pursuing this scheme, the author arranged, in the
same consecutive order, on some glass discs, a number
of equidistant phases of certain movements; each series,
as before, illustrated one or more complete and recurring
acts of motion, or a combination of them: for example,
an athlete turning a somersault on horseback, while the
animal was cantering; a horse making a few strides of
the gallop, a leap over a hurdle, another few strides,
another leap, and so on; or a group of galloping
horses.
Suitable gearing of an apparatus constructed for the
purpose caused one of these glass discs, when attached
to a central shaft, to revolve in front of the condensing
lens of a projecting lantern, parallel with, and close to
another disc fixed to a tubular shaft which encircled
the other, and around which it rotated in the contrary
direction. The latter disc was of sheet-metal, in which,
near its periphery, radiating from its centre, were long
narrow perforations, the number of which had a definite
relation to the number of phases in the one or more lines
of motion on the glass disc—the same number, one or
two more, or one or two less—according to the sequence
of phases, the intended direction of the movement, or the
variations desired in the apparent rate of speed.
The discs being of large size, small portions only of
their surfaces—showing one phase of each of the circles
of moving animals—were in front of the condenser at the
same instant,
To correct the apparent vertical extension of the
animals when seen through the narrow openings of the
metal disc on its revolution in such close proximity to, and
in the reverse direction of the glass disc, the photographs
on the latter, after numerous experiments, were ultimately
prepared as follows :—
A flexible positive was conically bent inwards, and
inclined at the necessary angle from the lens of the
copying camera to ensure the required horizontal elongation
of the animal while the straight line of ground corre-
sponded with the curvature of the intended ground-line
of the glass disc, towards the periphery of which the
feet of the animals were always pointed.
A negative was then made of this phase, and negatives
of the other phases, in the same manner. All the negatives
required for that particular subject were then consecutively
arranged, equidistantly, in a circle, on a large sheet of
¥
¥
4 ANIMALS IN
glass ; if the disc was to include more than one subject,
the phases thereof were arranged in the same manner,
and a transparent positive made of them collectively. The
glass support of the resulting positive was subsequently
cut into the form of a circle, and a hole bored through
the centre, for the purpose of attaching it to the inner
shaft of the apparatus.
Some of the discs illustrated eight or ten distinct
seriates of 17, 18, 19, 20, or 21 phases each, arranged,
with due regard to perspective effect, on different lines,
and included perhaps 200 figures of animals, which suc-
cessively appeared, the size of life, on the screen as if
trotting, cantering, galloping, and so forth, in various
directions, and at different rates of speed; and of men
performing acts of non-progressive movement, such as
bowing, or waving their arms. These apparent move-
ments could be continued for a period limited only by
the patience of the spectators. Much time and care were
required in the preparation of the discs, each figure
having to be photographed three times, independently,
before being photographed collectively.
For many of the discs it was found advisable to fill
up the outlines with opaque paint, as a more convenient
and satisfactory method of obtaining greater brilliancy
and stronger contrasts on the screen than was possible
with chemical manipulation only. In the ‘“ retouching”’
great care was invariably taken to preserve the photo-
graphic outline intact.
To this instrument the author gave the name of
ZOOPRAXISCOPE; it is the first apparatus ever used, or
ee
MOTION.
constructed, for synthetically demonstrating movements
analytically photographed from life, and in its resulting
effects is the prototype of all the various instruments
which, under a variety of names, are used for a similar
purpose at the present day.
In an article—“ Photographs of a Galloping Horse”
—published in the Gentleman's Magazine, December,
1881, Proctor, the astronomer, writes of having seen the
zoopraxiscope in operation “about two years” before
that date. This occurred at a lecture by the author on
Animal Movements, given to the San Francisco Art
Association.
The first demonstration given in Europe with the
zoOpraxiscope was at the laboratory of Dr. E. J. Marey,
in the presence of a large number of scientists from
various parts of the world, then attending the Electrical
Congress at Paris. A detailed criticism thereof appeared
in Ze Globe, and other Parisian journals, September 27,
1881. The same apparatus was used at a lecture given
by the author at the Royal Institution of Great Britain,
the Prince of Wales presiding on the occasion; a long
description (written by G. A. Sala) of the realistic effects
of the synthetic projections then made, appeared in the
Lllustrated London News, March 18, 1882.
It may here be parenthetically remarked that on the
27th of February, 1888, the author, having contemplated
some improvements of the zodpraxiscope, consulted with
Mr. Thomas A. Edison as to the practicability of using
that instrument in association with the phonograph, so as
to combine, and reproduce simultaneously, in the presence
PREPACE. 5
of an audience, visible actions and audible words. At
that time the phonograph had not been adapted to reach
the ears of a large audience, so the scheme was temporarily
abandoned.
Five years after this interview, or twelve years after
the zodpraxiscope had been exhibited at a large number
of scientific and artistic institutions in Europe and America,
the first improvement thereof, for the purpose of realizing
the same effects, appeared in the instrument called by its
ingenious constructor the “kinetoscope.” This improve-
ment was made possible by the invention of the celluloid
ribbon, by the use of which a larger number of successive
phases of motion could be obtained in the making of
the original negatives than on glass plates, and in the
synthetic exhibition of the positives thereof, than was
possible on a glass disc, however large, or however close
together the successive phases could be spirally arranged.
A great many claimants have arisen for this improve-
ment on the zoépraxiscope. To Marey must be attributed
the first obtainment, with a single lens, on a strip of
sensitized material, of a succession of moving figures, which
he accomplished in 1882; and to Edison the first appli-
cation of a strip or ribbon containing a number of such
figures in a straight line (instead of being arranged on
a large glass disc), for lantern projection; this, after much
patient attention, he succeeded in doing in 1893.
The combination of such an instrument with the
phonograph has not, at the time of writing, been satis-
factorily accomplished; there can, however, be but little
doubt that in the—perhaps not far distant — future
instruments will be constructed that will not only repro-
duce visible actions simultaneously with audible words,
but an entire opera, with the gestures, facial expressions,
and songs of the performers, with all the accompanying
music, will be recorded and reproduced by an apparatus,
combining the principles of the zodpraxiscope and the
phonograph, for the instruction or entertainment of an
audience long after the original participants shall have
passed away; and if the photographs should have been
made _ stereoscopically, and projections from each series
be independently and synchronously projected on a
screen, a perfectly realistic imitation of the original
performance will be seen, in the apparent “round,” by
the use of properly constructed binocular glasses.
With the exception of a series of phases of a solar
eclipse, made in January, 1880, the Palo Alto researches
were concluded in 1879; they resulted in the publication
of a volume containing about two hundred sheets of
photographs, the greater number of which illustrated from
twelve to twenty-four consecutive phases of some act of
movement by a man, a horse, or some other animal. A
few photographs were made of birds on the wing, others
of groups of horses on the gallop, and many represented
phases synchronously photographed from five different
points of view.
A number of these subjects were, a few years after-
wards, copied, and republished in a book bearing the same
title as that originally used by their author, without the
formality of placing his name on the title-page.
Although these preliminary labours had completely
B.
6 ANIMALS IN MOTION.
demonstrated all the mysteries connected with the various
gaits of a horse, it was recognized that the work was
incomplete, in consequence of the difficulty, and sometimes
impossibility, of obtaining, with wet collodion plates, the
essential details of rapid muscular action. The results,
however, excited so much attention in the artistic and
scientific worlds, that the author was convinced a more
systematic and comprehensive investigation, with the use
of the then newly discovered dry-plate process, would
result in the disclosure of a vast deal of information
valuable alike to the artist and to the scientist, and of
interest to the public generally.
The cost of an investigation on the contemplated
scale, and the subsequent publication of the results in a
commensurate manner, assumed such imposing proportions,
that all publishers to whom the proposition was made
shrunk—perhaps not unnaturally—from entering a field
so fraught with possibilities of unremunerative outlay.
It was under these circumstances that the University
of Pennsylvania
through the influence of its Provost,
Dr. William Pepper—with an enlightened exercise of
its functions as a contributor to human knowledge, in-
structed the author to make, under its auspices, a new
and comprehensive investigation of animal movements,
in the broadest signification of the words, and some of
the trustees and friends of the university constituted
themselves a committee for the purpose of promoting the
execution of the work.
These gentlemen were Dr. William Pepper, Charles
C. Harrison, Edward H. Coates, Samuel Dickson,
J. B. Lippincott, and Thomas Hockley. It is with much
gratification the author acknowledges his indebtedness to
these gentlemen for the interest they took in his labours,
for without their generous assistance the work would
probably never have been undertaken. Among many
others who also rendered valuable aid in his researches
were Doctors F. X. Dercum, Geo. F. Barker, Horace
H. Furness, Horace Jayne, and S. Weir Mitchell, of
the university; Craige Lippincott, Arthur E. Brown
(Director of the Zoological Gardens), and Lino F. Rondi-
nella and Henry Bell, the author’s two chief assistants,
who, respectively, had charge of the electrical and
developing departments.
The outdoor labours were recommenced in the spring
of 1884, and terminated in the autumn of 1885. More
than a hundred thousand photographic plates were used
in the preparation of the work for the press. The results
were published in 1887, with the title of “ Animal
Locomotion.” The work contains more than 20,000
figures of moving men, women, children, beasts, and
birds, in 781 photo-engravings, bound in eleven folio
volumes.
The great cost of printing and manufacturing the
work—independently of the preliminary expenses—neces-
sarily restricted its sale to a comparatively few complete
copies.
With a view of supplying the demand of art and of
science students, and others whom the subject interests,
it has been decided to select a number of the most
important plates made at the university, and to republish
PREFACE. 7
them ona reduced scale in a more popular and accessible
manner.
These plates demonstrate certain facts which occur, in
regular sequence, with uniform intervals of time, during
the accomplishment of some act of motion, thus enabling
the phases which characterize the transition from one
period of a movement to another period to be leisurely
studied. They are chemically executed engravings, and
are reproduced with all the original defects of photographic
manipulation, precisely as they were made in the camera.
A few plates of the Palo Alto investigation of 1872-79
are also included.
It is the hope of the author that the selection of
subjects has been judiciously made, and that the artist will
make discreet use of them. Should certain phases of the
movements be considered of sufficient naturally artistic
value to permit their being copied without derogation to
artistic effect, it is unnecessary to say it is not for that
KINGSTON-ON-THAMES,
December, 1898.
purpose they are published; their mission is simply
to furnish a guide to the laws which control animal
movements, and to show how those movements are
effected.
When the student has carefully noted the consecutive
phases of some act of progressive motion, he will do
wisely to put the book on one side and to seek his im-
pression of that motion from the animal itself.
By this process of study he will unquestionably
recognize the differences between his own educated
impression of any of the analyzed gaits—especially those
of the walk and of the gallop—and the interpretation
given to them by one whose judgment is founded on
tradition or unassisted observation; and he will be con-
vinced that the concrete facts of animal locomotion can
be ideally reproduced without offence to the canons of
Art or sacrifice of the truth of Nature.
i, ML.
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t
A eR BS a ad at ge
LEN TOW UC TKO N,
ZOOPRAXOGRAPHY, or the science of animal motion, has
been studied by mankind from the most remote period
of the world’s history.
If we seek for evidence of its original application to
design in art, we must direct our attention to an epoch
very much nearer to that in which intelligent life first
appeared on this earth, than to any of which history or
the faintest connecting record.
of this century it was the general
attention of
even tradition has left
Until the
belief that the most
man to artistic pursuits would be found on the banks of
the Nile.
The dates of Chinese antiquities were shrouded in
mystery; all traces of the once powerful Hittites had
disappeared, and the great cities of the Chaldzan and of
the Assyrian empires had been so completely obliterated
that Xenophon, two thousand years ago, marched his
army over the site of Nineveh without apparent know-
middle
ancient relics of the
ledge of its buried ruins.
9)
About fifty years ago some explorations in the south
of France brought to light a few remnants of carving
and engraving executed by a race of men who, unknown
centuries ago, left evidences of their sharing with the
mammoth and the reindeer a life amid such circumstances
as are experienced in an arctic region.
Living under the conditions which must have sur-
rounded man at this early period of his evolution, it
seems astonishing that he should have had either the
inclination or the taste to devote his attention to artistic
pursuits; but the debris of the caves wherein he dwelt
furnish the proof not only of his being a skilful imitator,
both in the round and in outline, of things which he saw,
but, what is of especial interest, that art was born in his
The few dis-
covered fragments of his labours evince a quickness of
observation, an appreciation of form and proportion, and
attempt to delineate an animal in motion.
a faculty of expressing movement with such scientific
fidelity that as little imagination is required to understand
c
10 ANIMALS IN MOTION.
the intention of the artist as he himself uses in the execu-
tion of his work.
The art of expressing ideas, or conveying information
by pictorial representation, naturally long preceded the
invention of letters ; these etchings and carvings of animals
by primitive man were apparently executed for no other
purpose than to gratify his artistic impulses, or to record an
event for which the language of his time was inadequate.
The importance of a correct knowledge of the various
functions of the limbs in locomotion was recognized in
the early ages of Greece. Aristotle devoted much atten-
tion to the subject, and Xenophon, Pliny, Vegetius,
and many other writers of ancient times tell us of the
great interest manifested by their respective contemporaries
in the training and employments of the horse.
None of these distinguished authors, however, have
left us any information as to the manner in which the
various movements they write about were executed.
No investigation—worthy of the name—is known to
have been made until the middle of the seventeenth
century.
In 1680 Borelli of Naples published his “De Motu
Animalium.” This celebrated mathematician evidently
conducted his experiments with great care; but, although
he disapproved of the generally accepted idea of the walk,
he allowed the Egyptian interpretation of the gallop to
pass unchallenged.
In 1658 the Marquis of Newcastle published at Ant-
werp his elaborate and well-known work on ‘“ Horseman-
ship.” The original was in the French language. A com-
plete English edition was issued in 1743. The two folio
volumes were illustrated with many finely executed copper-
plate engravings of horses performing various feats of
motion, and a chapter was devoted to “The Movements
of a Horse in all his Natural Paces.”
As these analyses were the sources from which all
lexicographers—English, French, and German—from the
date of publication to the end of the last decade, seem
to have taken their definitions of the various gaits of a
horse, they are included in an appendix to this volume.
In the early part of this century, Ernst and Wilhelm
Weber, the former an eminent physiologist, the latter
an equally distinguished physicist, published at Leipzig
the results of many years’ patient devotion to the subject.
The researches of Dr. E. J. Marey, of the College of
France, and Dr. J. Bell Pettigrew, of the University of
St. Andrews, are of too recent date, and are too well
known, to require more than a passing allusion. The
former was the first to avail himself of scientific appli-
ances to automatically register the characteristics of move-
ments. This was done by an ingenious apparatus, carried
by the rider of an animal, which caused styles-—actuated
by pneumatic pressure—to leave a record on a revolving
cylinder.
Although the actinic qualities of light, when its rays
were directed to organic matter which had been treated
with certain chemicals—especially salts of silver—was
well known to the alchemists of the Middle Ages, and
is now in universal use as a method of picture-making;
it was only about a quarter of a century ago that its value
INTRODUCTION. II
as a factor in scientific research was beginning to be recog-
nized. Since then it has been the means of opening many
new fields for inquiry, and a number of important dis-
coveries have been made which without its aid would
have been impossible.
It was to photography, therefore, that the author
resorted when he commenced a solution of the complex
problem of “Animal Locomotion.” The origin of his
labours has been mentioned in the Preface. Before
attempting a description of the results, it is essential
that the system employed for their obtainment should
be understood. The investigation at Palo Alto was
conducted in practically the same manner as that at the
University of Pennsylvania ; it will, therefore, be sufficient
to give a general explanation of the studio arrangements
at the latter place.
DIAGRAM OF THE STUDIO AT THE University OF PENNSYLVANIA, AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE
— APPARATUS FOR INVESTIGATING ANIMAL LocomorTrIon.
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12 ANIMALS
B, the lateral background, divided by threads into
spaces five centimetres, or about two inches, square,
every tenth thread being of greater thickness than the
others. At C C were portable backgrounds divided into
similar squares, and placed close to and at right angles
with the lateral background, when a fore-shortened series
of exposures rendered them necessary. These back-
grounds were black or white, as circumstances required.
TT, the track, covered with corrugated rubber matting,
along which the animal was caused to move. L, a lateral
battery of twenty-four automatic electro-photographic
cameras, arranged parallel with the line of progressive
motion; these were so placed that each camera was
practically opposite the animal when its phase of move-
ment was photographed. R, an automatic electro-photo-
graphic camera with twelve lenses, the plate-holders being
adapted for a plate three inches wide and thirty-six inches
long, which, in practice, it was found convenient to divide
into three parts of twelve inches each. A supplementary
lens was arranged to permit focussing while the plate-
holder was in position. For fore-shortenings at an angle
of ninety degrees to the laterals, this camera was usually
placed on end, so as to obtain one vertical line of view
for the series of twelve exposures. F, a similar camera
to R, usually placed horizontally at any convenient point.
D, the station of the director, and where were also placed
the electric batteries, the motor-clock for intermittently
completing the electric circuits, the chronograph for
recording the intervals of time between each successive
exposure, and other apparatus connected with the work.
IN MOTION.
The motive power of the circuit-maker was an adjust-
able weight attached to a cord wound round a drum, the
speed being regulated, partially, by a fan-wheel.
Fastened to the frame of the motor-clock was a
ring of hard rubber, in which were inserted twenty-four
insulated segments of platinum; these segments were
connected by insulated wires to the same number of
binding-posts. A shaft, connected by an arrangement
of geared wheels, passed through the centre of the
segmented ring and carried a loose collar; a stout metal
rod was firmly attached near its longitudinal centre to
this loose collar. One arm of the rod carried a laminated
metal scraper, or contact-brush, arranged to travel around
the periphery of the ring, and in its revolution to make
contact with each segment in succession. The contact-
brush was connected, through its arm, with one pole of
the battery; and each segment, through its independent
wire and magnet of its electro-exposer, with the other pole.
When twenty-four consecutive phases of an act of
motion were to be photographed, all of the insulated seg-
ments of the ring were put in circuit. When twelve
consecutive phases were to be made synchronously from
each of two or three points of view, each alternate seg-
ment was placed in circuit with the electric battery, and
the proper connections made with each set of exposers
in front of the lenses.
An experimental trial having been made to ascertain
the time required by the animal or model to complete
the intended movement, the weights and fan-wheel were
adjusted to cause the contact-brush to sweep around the
INTRODUCTION. 13
periphery of the segmented ring at the required rate of
speed, and the apparatus was set in operation.
If the series was to illustrate progressive motion, the
model or animal would start on its journey at a more or
less distant point from the cameras. On its approach to
the figure r on the track, and as near thereto as its speed
and the personal equation of the director allowed, an
independent current was switched on through a magnet
below the rod of the contact-brush.
The action of the armature released the lower end of
the rod on the loose collar, which, by means of a coiled
spring, was immediately thrown into gearing with the
already revolving shaft; the contact-brush swept around
the segmented ring, and made the consecutive series of
exposures at the pre-arranged intervals of time.
Providing it was so intended, three exposures were
made simultaneously, one through each of the lenses
marked 1 at each of the operating points marked respec-
tively L, R, and F. At the pre-determined interval of
time, another three synchronous exposures were made
through each of the lenses marked 2, and so on until
the entire series was completed. If the time had been
accurately calculated, the successive phases were photo-
graphed in precise accordance with the arrival of the
model at the numbered places on the track, and exactly
opposite the correspondingly numbered camera. This
perfect uniformity of time, speed, and distance was not
always obtained, and allowance was therefore usually
made for a slight overlapping of the phases required to
illustrate a complete stride or movement.
The time-intervals of exposures varied from the
one-hundredth of a second to several seconds. A record
of these time-intervals was kept by the chronograph
—a well-known instrument, used in every physiological
laboratory—it comprises a revolving cylinder of smoke-
blackened paper, on which, by means of successive electric
contacts, a style is made to record the vibrations of a
tuning-fork, while a second style marks the commence-
ment of each successive exposure. The number of
vibrations occurring between any two exposures marks
the time.
The tuning-fork made one hundred vibrations in a
second of time. To ensure greater minuteness and
accuracy in the record, the vibrations were divided into
tenths, and the intervals calculated in thousandths of a
second.
For the purpose of determining the synchronous action
of the electro-exposers while making a double series of
exposures, the accuracy of the time-intervals as recorded
by the chronograph, and the duration of the shortest
exposures used in the investigation, the two cameras of
twelve lenses each were placed side by side, and the
exposers were connected through their respective magnets
with the motor-clock by separate lengths of one hundred
feet of cable. The lenses of the two cameras were
pointed to a rapidly revolving disc of five feet diameter.
The surface of the disc was black, with thin white threads
radiating from the centre to the edge.
A microscopic examination of the two series of result-
ing negatives failed to prove any variation from the
14 ANIMALS
synchronous action of ten of the duplicated series; and in
the two others there was a discrepancy in the simultaneity
by a few ten-thousandths of a second; a result sufficiently
near to synchrony for any ordinary use.
The shortest exposures made at the university were
in about the one six-thousandth part of a second, and
in this time details in black and white drapery were
obtained on the same negative. Such brief exposures
were in this class of work rarely needed. Some horses,
galloping at full speed, will cover nineteen yards of ground
in a second of time, or a full mile in a hundred seconds
or less. At this speed a foot, recovering from its rest,
will be thrust forward with an occasional velocity of more
than forty yards ina second. During the one-thousandth
part of a second, the body of the horse may move forward
about seven-tenths of an inch, and a moving foot perhaps
one and a half inches—no very serious matter for ordinary
requirements.
A knowledge of the duration of the exposure was in
this investigation of no value, the aim always being to
give as long a time as the rapidity of the action would
permit, with a due regard to essential sharpness of outline
and distinctness of detail.
Although the one six-thousandth part of a second was
the most rapid exposure made on this occasion, it is by
no means the limit of rapidity in mechanically effected
photographic negative exposing; nor does the one-hun-
dredth part of a second approach the limit of time-intervals.
Marey, in his physiological experiments, has recently made
IN MOTION.
successive exposures with far less intervals of time; and
the author has devised, and hopes some day to make use
of, an apparatus which will photograph twenty consecutive
phases of the vibration of an insect’s wing, even assuming
as correct a quotation by Pettigrew from JV2cholson’s
Journal, that a common house-fly will make, during flight,
seven hundred vibrations in a second
much in excess of the reality.
It may be here appropriately mentioned that Marey,
in 1882, discarded his original ‘‘graphic” method of
analyzing motion for the more effective photographic
process.
a number probably
At the Palo Alto investigation a series of negatives
was frequently made by threads stretched across the track
of the animal. The thrust against each of these threads
in succession completed an electric circuit, and effected a
photographic exposure; the thread was subsequently
broken by the progress of the animal. Some seriates were
made by the wheel of a vehicle, to which a horse was
attached, depressing wires; each depression completed a
circuit and effected the exposure of a negative. For small
animals and birds, and for movements without regular
progressive motion, the motor-clock was necessarily used.
The rapidity of the transmission of nervous sensation
was experimented with. The explosion of a small torpedo
in close proximity to an animal or bird, started the motor-
clock, and commenced a series of exposures. An example
of its effect may be seen in Plate 781 of “Animal Loco-
motion.”
PIECE IBIS. IO) AUINGAMESYSIO/Sy
WuHeEN an animal is carrying itself forward by any system
of regular motion, its limbs, in their relation to the body,
have alternately a progressive and a retrogressive action ;
their various portions are accelerated in comparative speed
as they extend downwards to the feet, which are subjected
to successive changes from a total cessation of movement
to a varyingly increased velocity in comparison with that
of the body.
Photographic analysis has demonstrated that quad-
rupeds employ, on the surface of the ground, eight different
regular systems of progressive motion. They are—
t. The walk.
2. The amble.
. The trot.
4. The rack.
The canter.
The transverse-gallop.
The rotatory-gallop.
The ricochet.
o>
wom a
In this enumeration crawling is omitted, it being
simply a modified system of walking, and subject to the
same rules.
Leaping or jumping by the use of all four of an
15
animal's legs can be regarded only as an accidental inter-
ruption to regular progress.
All other methods which may be occasionally employed
by, or which it is possible for an animal to use in terrestrial
locomotion, may be considered as abnormal movements.
The differences between the step and the stride of an
animal are not always clearly understood.
A “step” is an act of progressive motion, in which one
of the supporting members of the body is lifted from the
ground, thrust in the direction of the movement, placed
again on the ground, and caused to reassume, either wholly
or in part, its proper functions of supporting and propelling
the body.
A “stride” is a combination of actions in progressive
motion, which requires each one of the supporting members
of the body, in the exercise of its individual functions, to
be—either alone or in association with another supporting
member—lifted from the ground in its regular sequence,
thrust in the direction of the movement, placed again on
the ground, and caused to reassume the same relative
16 ANIMALS IN MOTION.
position to the body and to the other limbs as it occupied
at the commencement of the notation.
The normal stride of a biped consists of two uniformly
executed steps.
Shakespeare recognizes this fact in The Merchant of
Venice, act iii. sc. a—
“Tl. . . turn two mincing steps
Into a manly stride.”
The normal stride of a quadruped, while using four
limbs as supports, during locomotion, consists of four steps.
These steps may occur singly, and at approximately
regular periods of time, as in the walk; singly, and at
irregular periods, as in the amble, the canter, or the gallop ;
or in pairs, as in the trot or in the rack.
To facilitate a study of the various systems of support
and propulsion employed by an animal during the execu-
tion of any of its regular gaits, symbols have been adopted
to designate the feet which during the instant of a
particular phase are actually engaged in one or both of
these special functions.
These symbols are for—
Left. Right.
Anterior, or fore feet... ae A <5 A
Posterior, or hind feet ... oe © ae S
Denotes that the left fore-foot and the right
hind-foot are at that instant being used to support
or to propel the body.
Denotes a transit without, at that instant, the
actual support of any one of the feet.
In the diagrams, arrow-heads indicate the direction
of the movement. The sequences of the phases are
regularly numbered.
The intervals of time or of distance between any two
phases of the diagrams are not there recorded, nor is the
precise locality of any foot indicated. These facts can
only be ascertained by reference to the illustrations from
which the diagrams are constructed.
In the execution of the eight distinct systems of
regular progressive motion, animals employ fifteen different
methods of temporary support, all of which are, under
various conditions, made use of by the horse. They are—
Four feet on the ground.
Three feet on the ground.
PRELUDE TO
Two feet on the
ground,
8 9 se) TaD
One foot on the ground,
14 15
In the illustrations the sequences of phases are arranged
12 13
in the direction of the movement, or are marked by an
arrow.
When the consecutive phases of a movement have
been synchronously photographed from two or more points
of view, the fore-shortened phases are arranged in the
ANALYSES. 17
same direction as the laterals; the corresponding phases of
any series—if the small size of some of their numbers
prevent their being readily seen—can be ascertained by
counting the succession.
The time-intervals between the phases are marked in
thousandths of a second; the time of a complete stride,
approximately, in hundredths of a second.
The distance measurements are, approximately, given
in inches, and in metres roughly calculated on the basis
of forty inches to a metre.
In the analyses of the gaits the word “spring” must
not always be taken to imply a leap; it is frequently used
as a convenient term to indicate the last impulse of a foot
prior to its being lifted from the ground.
During very rapid motion by a good horse, the aggre-
gate of the body preserves a nearly horizontal line, the
period of transit without support being usually too brief
for the attraction of gravitation to have much effect, and
the body of the animal is nearer to the ground by the
height of the fetlock or pastern-joint than when standing
at rest.
D
— SE 6 Rb ETT cal
= WEA I Ke.
Or the various methods of animal motion, the walk claims
our first consideration; it is characterized by an immu-
table sequence of limb movements, common alike to man
and beast, and there is little doubt of its having been the
primitive system of locomotion employed, on their evolution,
by all the terrestrial vertebrates.
The law governing this method of progress is, that the
naturally superior or stronger limb takes precedence of its
inferior lateral limb in being lifted, thrust forward, and
again placed on the ground.
During the walk of a quadruped whose constant habit
is to travel on the surface of the ground, and to employ all
four of its feet for the purposes of support and propulsion,
the successive foot-impacts, assuming the notation
commence with the landing of O, will be—
to
ie)
A being, of course, followed by O in the next stride.
When a horse is standing with the weight of the body
equitably distributed over his four legs, and under these
conditions commences to walk, the initiatory movement will
invariably be made with a hind-foot ; the lateral fore-foot
will next follow, and under the normal conditions of regu-
lar progress this fore-foot will be lifted in advance of the
suspended hind-foot being placed on the ground.
The rapidity with which any one foot follows any other
foot, or the duration of its contact with the ground, vary
greatly, not only with different species of animals, but also
with the same animal under apparently similar conditions.
Series 1 illustrates twelve consecutive phases of two
steps, or one half of a complete stride of a horse, walking
at a speed of about four and a quarter miles an hour. In
phase 1, although O is still flat on the ground, it has practi-
cally relinquished its function of support, and, as in Be
and 4, that duty is imposed on the diagonals @ A; 4
2,
exhibits A a fraction of an inch only above the ground, but
it assists the labours of @ A in 5.
In 6 A has broken the alliance; in this phase, and also
in 7, 8, and 9, the right laterals alone furnish the needed
laterals in 10
The toe of @
support. O comes to the aid of these
just as Ais being advanced beyond A.
,
i
ag ANIMALS IN MOTION.
still lingers on the ground in 12; a phase fractionally in
comparative advance of O in 1.
One half of the stride is now completed.
Assuming that no interruption takes place, and the
horse to be walking, under the usual conditions, on level
ground, the remaining half—with a substitution of the right
feet for the left—will be executed in practically the same
manner.
This analysis determines the successive methods of
support afforded by the feet of a horse during a normal
stride of the walk to be—
teh ETT
The notation may, of course, be commenced at any phase,
but in the normal walk of a horse it will invariably be
found that the support is thrown, during one stride, twice
on the laterals, twice on the diagonals, twice on two fore
feet and one hind-foot, and twice on two hind feet and
one fore-foot ; eight different systems of support.
Series 2 illustrates twelve consecutive phases of a
powerful draught horse pulling a dead weight of perhaps
one thousand pounds, requiring a continuous strain.
The synchronous fore-shortenings are on p. 29.
Series 3 demonstrates the walk of a thorough-bred
Kentucky mare, who is also represented in the canter and
the gallop. On p. 41 are five phases each, of a fast walk,
and a slow trot; the last phase of the walk indicates a
tendency to increase the pace to an amble. The plate
may be found useful in demonstrating the transitions to
and from the central phases of each line, they having
some points of resemblance.
When an animal is walking very slowly, the supports
are not furnished alternately by two and by three feet, as
in the normal walk, but by alternations of three and of
four feet, each foot is placed in regular succession on the
ground in advance of its preceding foot being lifted there-
from. Had the ass in series 5 been walking a little more
slowly, four feet on the ground would have been seen in
phases 1, 7,and12. An animal grazing in the fields affords
an illustration of a very slow walk, and a good opportunity
of studying the sequence of foot-fallings.
The ox, goat, and hog, as representatives of double-
toed, or cloven-footed animals; and the elephant, Bactrian
camel, lion, dog, raccoon, and capybara as representatives
of soft-footed quadrupeds, will be found, in their respective
seriates, to follow, while walking, the same sequence of
foot-fallings as that disclosed by the horse.
A noteworthy confirmation of the law governing the
walk was found in the case of a child suffering from
infantile paralysis, whose only method of locomotion was
by the use of her limbs exactly in the manner of a
quadruped. In her progress it was revealed that not only
was the regular system of limb movements used, but the
support of the body devolved, in their proper sequence, on
THE
the laterals and on the diagonals.
chapter is as faithful a representation of the consecutive
impacts by that child as it is of those by an elephant,
a turtle, or a mouse.
In our enumeration of movements, crawling is classified
as a method of walking. Series 17 illustrates a strong,
healthy child crawling on her hands and knees. Phase 4
clearly demonstrates support on the diagonals alone ; that
afforded by the laterals is not so easily recognized; the
The diagram in this
succession, however, is indisputable.
With man walking erect, as we find in seriates 18
and 19, the culmination of the swing of the arm must be
considered as the equivalent of placing its hand on the
ground. It will be seen in 1, series 18, that although
the right foot is not yet flat on the ground, and the toe
of the left foot remains in contact therewith, the right
arm has commenced its forward thrust, which terminates
in 6, before the heel of the left foot reaches the ground.
In 7, the right hand is on its backward swing, while the
Attempts were
left has commenced its forward motion.
made to obtain visible evidence of the tendency of a
bird’s wing while using its legs in walking; the resulting
information was inconclusive. In series 20 we have an
animal that apparently disregards the law governing the
walk. Although the ape family, during their progress on
the surface of the ground, are accustomed to use all four of
their limbs as supports, their constant habit of climbing has
so developed the strength of their anterior limbs, or arms,
that they have become the superior, and consequently, in
their movements, usually take precedence of their laterals.
WALK. 21
If, while a horse is walking, two moving feet are seen
respectively in advance of, and to the rear of the support-
ing legs, they are diagonals; if two moving feet are seen
under the body, between the supporting legs, they are
diagonals, as disclosed by phases 2 and 7, series 1. In
series 20, phases 1 and 3, this rule is reversed; but it
is not invariably followed. An ape will occasionally walk
on all-fours, with the same order of foot-fallings as that
which characterizes the rotatory-gallop.
The family of apes, when climbing, make prior use
of the stronger lateral, as may be seen in series 21, repre-
senting a baboon climbing a pole.
The sloth would find its horizontally suspended walk
difficult to execute with any relaxation of diagonal support,
as series 22 demonstrates.
The movements of animals in their relation to design
in Art requires far broader treatment than is possible in
the present volume; its province in this important matter
will, therefore, be confined to a superficial review of the
expression given to some of the movements, as illustrated
by a few examples of ancient and modern times. It is
worthy of note that the presumed most ancient relic yet
discovered of artistic design represents the quadrupedal
walk scientifically correct. The position of the limbs of
the reindeer, in the well-known etching by some pre-
historic artist, is precisely the same as photographed from
nature in series 1, phase 8.
The inflexible laws of an all-powerful priesthood, and
the superstitions of a docile people, prohibited the Egyptian
artist from giving more than one expression to the walk
}
q
)
bo
No
ANIMALS
of a quadruped, except to that of the horse; the excep-
tion is probably due to the fact of the horse being an
unknown animal in Egypt when the decree was made.
The phase adopted can readily be seen by watching a
cow grazing until it reaches a stage of progress when,
with all four feet on the ground, the right legs incline
forward from their base and the left legs incline backward,
the direction usually being from left to right. This phase
of the walk was used by the Egyptians for asses, oxen,
jackals, porcupines, and other animals, in endless repeti-
tion, in their manuscripts and decorative paintings, and
in the carvings on their temples and sarcophagi. The
common Egyptian interpretation of the walk is represented
by the photograph of the ass, p. 83.
Although in Egyptian art the horse is far less skil-
fully drawn than are other animals, the expression given
to his walk is correct ; the phase usually adopted resembles
that of 2, series 1. Whether the Assyrians derived their
art inspirations from the Egyptians, the Egyptians from
the Chaldeans, or whether they were all originally taught
by a race of whom we have no remains or tradition, will
probably never be determined. It is evident that there
was much communication between the people of the
second Assyrian empire and the Egyptians. There are
strong points of resemblance in their interpretations of
animal movements; the bent knee in the walk of the
former, however, is not usually found on the Nile, except
in illustrations of the horse.
In Hamilton’s “Early Greek Vases” appears a design
of Diomedes and Ulysses, presenting to Nestor the horses
IN MOTION.
of Rhesus; the horses are apparently copied from some
Egyptian design.
In the perfection of their work, some of the later
Greeks were inclined to represent the walk more, perhaps,
as they thought it ought to be than as it really is.
On the arch of Titus; the column of Trajan, and in
many of their statues, the Romans seem to have been
indifferent to their interpretation of this action.
A certain phase of the trot has been very generally
used by painters and sculptors of the horse to represent
the action of walking. It is frequently difficult, both in
ancient and modern art, to determine whether it is the
intention of the designer to indicate a trot of ten miles
an hour or a walk of one-third of that speed.
The statue of Marcus Aurelius, at Rome, is a
remarkable instance of the failure of a sculptor to
express his obvious intention. The pose of the emperor,
and other circumstances, point to a deliberate motion
of the horse, which is not confirmed by its method of
progress.
Many of the equestrian statues of Europe and America
are, virtually, reproductions of Marcus Aurelius, and
represent the legs of the animal performing a lively trot
of eight or ten miles an hour, while the rider sits with
as calm a repose as if taking part in a solemn procession.
The larger figure, p. 41, very closely reproduces the phase
of motion, selected by the sculptor, for the horse on which
the Roman emperor is seated.
This apparent indifference, or lack of discrimination
by the artist, was shown in the reliefs on the column
LEE
of Theodosius, erected at Constantinople in the fourth
century. Two heavily-laden pack-horses in a procession,
one immediately in front of the other, are represented,
the one trotting, the other walking; many other animals,
oxen, camels, elephants, etc., are intended to be repre-
sented walking, to some of which the artist gave a correct
interpretation, to others, an erroneous one; the
number, however, were strictly correct.
The bronze horses over the portals of St.
greater
Mark’s
at Venice, are fine examples of a careful study of natural
action.
Of the great masters of the fifteenth and two succeed-
ing centuries, Donatello and Verrocchio are the most
pronounced in their complete understanding of this
movement, as their respective statues at Padua and
Venice afford ample proof. Albert Durer, in “ The
Knight, Death and the Devil,’ leaves a singular memento
of his carelessness in giving effect to his avowed intention.
One of the greatest Austrian artists of this century, in
companion pictures, each of a procession in which women
and children are taking part, has the central figure of one
picture on a horse walking, of the other, on one trotting.
A celebrated animal painter of France, in a picture
so meritorious as to be considered worthy of a place in
the national collection, depicts several oxen yoked to a
plough; from the vigorous efforts of the driver to goad
them on, they are supposed to be making very slow
progress ; but one, only, of the
others, with probably the same inclination, are moving
with a variety of gaits.
the animals is walking;
Ss?
WALK. 23
Error in the interpretation of the quadrupedal walk
predominant, that Meissonier
exhibited his picture of “1814,” he was much ridiculed
had become so when
by the artists and critics of Paris for having—as they
supposed—misrepresented that action. In 1881 the great
painter assembled his colleagues of the Academy in his
studio for the purpose of convincing them, as he himself
that “the Sun had
been invoked to prove the truth of Meissonier’s impres-
announced on the occasion, now
sion.” It is unnecessary to point out the phase selected
by the artist for the leading horse of his picture.
The “ Roll Call”
—to the astonishment of the critics at the time—of a
affords another well-known example
careful study of the walk.
The walk of a quadruped being of a slow unexciting
character, is perhaps the reason why few references are
made to it, by name, in poetry, or even in general prose
compositions.
uses the word,
Shakespeare metaphorically, in
FHlamlet, i. t—
“The morn in russet mantle clad,
Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastern hill.”
Milton, in ‘ Paradise Lost,” vil., says —
“ Among the trees, in pairs they rose and walked.”
And Swift, in a voyage to the Houyhnhnms, reports
that Gulliver “saw a horse walking softly in the field.”
Authors, as a rule, indicate the pace by some inferential
Wordsworth, in “The Old Cumberland
word. ‘Thus
24 ANIMALS
Beggar”: “the sauntering horseman.’ Longfellow, in
“Tales of a Wayside Inn ”—
y
‘* A jaded horse, his head down bent,
Passed slowly ; limping as he went.”
Dickens, “ David Copperfield,” iii.: “The carrier's horse
was the laziest horse in the world. . . and shuffled along
with his head down.” Morris, “ Bellerophon at Argos ”—
“The slow tramp of a great horse soon they heard.”
IN
MOTION.
Barham, in ‘The Lay of Aloys,” alludes to the
of a cat under difficulties—
“From his lurking place,
With stealthy pace,
Through the long-drawn aisle he begins to crawl,
As you see a cat walk on the top of a wall
When it’s stuck full of glass, and she thinks she shall fall.”
A PHASE IN THE SLOW WALK OF A HORSE.
walk
TSU IR, WW AN IU IK,
dueard Muybridge.| oS SERIES I.
A HALF-STRIDE, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM TWO POINTS OF VIEW.
Horse ‘‘ Eagle.”
Length of complete stride: 88 inches (2°20 metres). Time-intervals: °052 second.
Approximate time of complete stride: 1°20 seconds. Strides to a mile: 720. Speed per mile: 14 minutes.
to
wm
= —
cme
= ONS et
TUTE, WWOAIL, IS
Copy y Eadweard Muybriad. >_> SERIES 2
ONE STRIDE: DRAGGING A HEAVY DEAD-WEIGHT.
Forse ** Billy.”
Length of stride: 60 inches (1°50 metres), Time-intervals: ‘111 second. Approximate time of complete stride: 1°19 seconds.
: = - «TRIE a I ek oe
TRL, WY AIL IS.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.] Sy SER continued.
ONE STRIDE: DRAGGING A HEAVY DEAD-WEIGHT.
Forse ‘* Billy.”
Synchronous foreshortenings of corresponding phases in series 2 arranged in the same consecutive order.
29
SS a Per Pee
WSL 18, WY AIL IK,
jai
Copyright, 1
by Eadweard Muybridge.)
A HALF-STRIDE, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM
Length of complete stride :
Thorough-bred Mare ‘* Annie.”
84 inches (2"10 metres).
Approximate time of complete stride :
*95 second.
Time-intervals :
TWO POINTS OF VIEW.
"O44 second.
SERIES 3.
ee TTS or ie eee ae
Wish le, WW uAIL IK.
—_—— SERIES 4.
ONE STRIDE IN TEN PHASES, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM THREE POINTS OF VIEW.
Horse ‘* Elberon.”
Length of stride: 86 inches (2"15 metres). Time-intervals: *126 second. Approximate time of stride: 1°17 seconds.
(o)
ios)
ae SSE ik yee Sa eee a
Wiel ls; WW av IL IK
SOME CONSECUTIVE PHASES OF THE WALK FROM SERIES 2.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.)
CSG
FLorse
= a WIENS OP. a Tig SPT = ey Pe eee a
Te Tah 1B, WA IL IK,
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.|
SOME CONSECUTIVE PHASES OF THE WALK.
Horse ** Clinton.”
ira
o/
Wilal ls WAN IL IK,
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.]
THREE PHASES OF THE WALK FROM SERIES 4.
EacH PHASE PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM THREE PoINTs OF VIEW.
Horse “° Elberon.”
39
TWiIsUIE, WAIL I.
COMPARED WITH SOME CONSECUTIVE PHASES OF A SLOW TROT.
The right feet are indicated by dots near the pasterns.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.)
A PHASE OF THE TROT.
4l ie
2 SG Se oey Jee ae ~
se bee: 2 So , J
AP West Te) WAN IE TK.
Copyright, 1887, 6y Eadweard Muybridge.| Sjaes sp
A HALF-STRIDE IN SEVEN PHASES.
The Ass.
Length of stride: 44 inches (1°10 metres). Time-intervals: ‘094 second. Approximate time of stride: 1°06 seconds.
43
: Bp en BETS Be, 4 TE al LE Nia ag Se
THE WALK.
A HALF-STRIDE IN THIRTEEN PHASES.
The Ox.
Length of complete stride: $4 inches (2"10 metres), Time-intervals : ‘048 second. Approximate time of complete stride: 1°15 seconds.
45
= ee ern ak TUT ae — 2 eee .
Wyatt, WANE IK
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.|
A HALF-STRIDE IN THIRTEEN PHASES.
The Goat.
Length of complete: stride: 48 inches (1°20 metres). Time-intervals: ‘043 second. Approximate time of complete stride: 1'03 seconds.
47
ee re OR ae oe —— Sg 2 Se Ra 4
|
H
i
ANAL, Ie
/
AL Tal 1,
RIES
&
n
ge.)
, by Eadweard Muybrii
Copyrigh
OWS Sari leo
The Hog.
‘85 second.
er
trid
eof s
tim
Approximate
1.
-intervals : ‘077 secon
Time
I*IO metres).
(
: 44 inches
Length of stride
H
49
|
a —
AMAL TE AN IL, I
Copyright, 18
, by Eadweard Muybridge.)
SERIES 9.
Wi
IRREGULAR: WALKING IN CONFINEMENT.
The Tiger.
Time-intervals: *119 second.
Tate, WAIL IS
&
Copyright,
by Eadweard Muybr idge.|
IRREGULAR: WALKING IN CONFINEMENT.
The Lion.
Time-intervals : ‘076 second.
unr
w
WBE WAIL IX.
SERIES 11
BREAKING INTO A GALLOP.
The Cat.
Time-intervals : ‘031 second, Approximate time of complete series: *71 second.
un
un
= sa EX sR ee Ss. ee —— wa PLT fame
CS EIN s AVWEAN Tene:
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.) <—$ KE Sentes ve.
ONE STRIDE, NOT QUITE COMPLETED.
The Elephant.
Height of animal: roo inches (2°50 metres). Length of stride; 112 inches (2°80 metres).
Time-intervals : "063 second. Approximate time of stride: 1°32 seconds.
57
Tat le, WOVE I.
Copyright,
, by Eadweard Muvbyidge.
A HALF-STRIDE IN FOURTEEN PHASES.
The Bactrian Camel.
SERIES 13-
Length of stride: 100 inches (2°50 metres). Time-intervals ; *057 second. Approximate time of complete stride: 1'48 seconds.
59
= EBIGREPS Wi ir ST UST on ees. — AH
Wish le, WWUAN IL, IK.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.] oun Siaares hin
ONE STRIDE IN TEN PHASES, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM TWO POINTS OF VIEW.
The Dog (Mastiff).
61
—————
. rt
Sh cern See ee
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.)
SOME PHASES
Wise, WAN IL, I,
IN THE WALK OF A DOG FROM SERIES
63
14.
TIL IB, WORN IL IK
by Eadweard Muybridge.
SERIES 15.
TURNING AROUND.
The Raccoon.
Time-intervals: ‘032 second.
| 65 K
Walid, WAN IL IK.
Copyright, 1887, by Radweard Muybridge.| yy
A HALF-STRIDE IN SEVEN PHASES.
The Capybara.
SERIES 16.
67
: <The
he set a
Wiel Je, WY YAN IL, IK,
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.] —— Series 17.
CRAWLING ON HANDS AND KNEES: ONE STRIDE IN SIX PHASES.
The Child,
DEMONSTRATING THE LAW GOVERNING THE CONSECUTIVE ACTION OF THE LIMBS IN THE PRIMITIVE METHOD OF TERRESTRIAL PROGRESSIVE MOTION
BY VERTEBRATES.
Time-intervals : “169 second.
a
Ke)
=x ws 2 RAISERS Ro es STN ae te oer Ne ERS +
—EE ee
Wet 1 WW ANI IK
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Mi ¥
pyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muy _ > Series 18.
A HALF-STRIDE, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM TWo POINTS OF vViEw.
Man (Athlete).
DEMONSTRATING THE LAW GOVERNING THE CONSECUTIVE ACTION OF THE LIMBS IN THE PRIMITIVE METHOD OF TERRESTRIAL PROGRESSIVE MOTION
BY VER TEBRATES,
Length of complete stride; 72 inches (1'80 metre), Time-intervals : ‘083 second, Approximate time of complete stride: "95 second
al
eve a Pe Se z ae © 7
= PL ee dele SE “<< 4
THE WALK.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.| won
A HALF-STRIDE, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM TWO POINTS OF VIEW.
ENLARGED FROM A PHOTO-ENGRAVING.
SERIES 19.
Man (Athlete),
Time-intervals : *069 second.
73 1
— SS a ee ee —
| TRUE WOAILIK,
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.)
ONE STRIDE IN FOURTEEN Pin SE Ss
DEMONSTRATING THE LAW GOVERNING THE CONSECUTIVE
>——— SERIES 20,
ACTION OF THE LIMBS IN THE PRIMITIVE METHOD OF VERTEBRAL PROG
RESSIVE Moron,
ANTERIOR Limb, OR ARM, BEING THE SUPERIOR.
THE
The Baboon.
Length of stride: 41 inches (1°02 metres), Time-intervals : 045 second.
75
Approximate time of stride; -61 second.
ea a aa IER, Bi Ss CTL NTT a
W101, WAYGANIL, I
7
&: =
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge. Sunes at
A HALF-STRIDE IN NINE PHASES. tj
CLIMBING, OR WALKING IN A VERTICAL DIRECTION BY SUSPENSION.
The Baboon. |
77
ST TY a EES 5h ATI
Tila ls WONT IK.
ONE STRIDE, NEARLY COMPLETED.
WALKING HORIZONTALLY BY SUSPENSION.
The Sloth.
1
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Adjutant.
TO lal 18, WWUAN IL IK,
The
STRIDE
Muybridge.|
A HALF
eard
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by Eac
1887,
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Copyri
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= cant BARBS BS CR ay
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SOME PHASES OF THE WALK.
AS EXECUTED BY THE Ass, THE OX, THE Hoc, THE GNU, AND THE BUFFALO or BISon.
SOME CONSECUTIVE PHASES OF THE WALK OF A HORSE, PHOTOGRAPHED
FROM THE REAR.
83
cone AS ee — es = nS ee ae 57
A al EVAN IG IIS,
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.)
SOME PHASES IN THE WALK OF THE LIONESS, THE LION, THE TIGER, THE DOMESTIC CAT, THE CAMEL, COMPARED WITH
THE CRAWLING OF A CHILD, THE SUSPENDED WALK OF THE SLOTH, AND THE WALK OF THE BABOON REPRESENTING
THE APE FAMILY.
85
——=— a Sie ER Dy IE TOT SD et
stan 5 EET OS TTS aed
Wt tale, WAN IL, IK,
M age
fe» SE: Gite
{Shes fe feet ef 5%
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Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridee.| ;
SOME PHASES IN THE WALK OF THE TIGER, THE JAGUAR, AND THE LION, ALL IN THE ACT OF TURNING ROUND.
SUSPENDED WALK OF THE BABOON. THE WALK OF THE CAPYBARA, REPRESENTING THE RODENTS.
PHASES OF THE WALK OF AN ELEPHANT, PHOTOGRAPHED FROM THE REAR.
ss)
THE VERTICALLY
AND THREE CONSECUTIVE
87
os ee te ee es ee = Se riety
Decks
Tue amble is a development of the walk into a mode
of progress from which a higher rate of speed may be
obtained. Practically, it is an accelerated walk; it has
the same sequence of foot-impacts, but from their more
rapid succession, a hind-foot and a fore-foot are alter-
nately lifted from the ground in advance of its following
foot being placed thereon.
This procedure results in throwing the duty of sup-
port alternately on one foot and on two feet. A _hind-
foot and a fore-foot successively furnish the single
support; diagonals and laterals alternate in supplying
the duplex support.
Series 24 demonstrates how this movement is con-
summated.
In 1 the support devolves on @ A, with—as in the
walk—O A suspended between them. In 3 @ is lifted in
advance of O being landed, which is, however, on the
ground in 4, where O A jointly sustain the weight of the
body ; the bent knee of A indicates that O will soon have
to perform its labours alone, as it is doing in 5; A soon
comes to its assistance, and in 6 the left laterals assume
WV Ie:
89
the responsibility which in 1 devolved on the right laterals.
One-half of the stride is now completed, and so far all
has gone as it should; had the remaining moiety been
executed with similar precision, there would have been
no fault to find.
not so abundant as they are in Kentucky, California, and
In Pennsylvania, ambling horses are
some other countries; the only horse capable of ambling,
and obtainable, was the one here represented, who neg-
lected to use his legs in the orthodox manner during the
second half of the stride.
The six consecutive phases used as an illustration of
this gait may, however, be accepted as perfectly charac-
teristic of the complete movement, which may be recorded
in the diagram as—
PEHTT THE
N
go ANIMALS IN MOTION.
This motion is perhaps better scientifically demonstrated
in series 26, which represents a complete stride by a
first-class ambling horse, photographed at Palo Alto
during the summer of 1879. The horse not having been
of a suitable colour for the background, the outlines
were carefully filled in to give the figure more distinct-
ness, and a dot added to distinguish the right feet from
the left. The stride is somewhat more than completed
in phase 11. No record of the speed was taken, but
it probably was about seven miles an hour,
Series 27 illustrates twenty-four phases of one nearly
completed stride of an elephant while progressing at as
fast a speed as vigorous persuasion could induce
equi-
valent to a mile in somewnat less than seven minutes.
The gait resorted to was the amble. In phase 10
the weight of the body devolves on A; 12 demonstrates
the assistance rendered by O; the bend of the knee in
14, which is more pronounced in 15, determines O to
be practically furnishing exclusive support for a_ brief
period, which function is shared by A during several
following phases. In 21 A assumes the entire respon-
sibility until 23, when the animal is again fairly on the
diagonals.
The diagram of the stride of a horse is equally applic-
able to one by the elephant.
The walk and the amble are probably the only two
gaits used by the elephant in his natural state. Oriental
paintings and carvings may not be very trustworthy
sources of information, but so far as they have been
examined by the author, they corroborate this supposition.
It is very remarkable that, although the amble is the
most comfortable to the rider, of all the gaits which are
natural to the horse, or to which he has been trained, it
is now, in Great Britain, either entirely unknown, or has
lapsed into disfavour. It is perhaps more remarkable that
many writers on the horse and horsemanship should have
confused this delightful, easy motion, with that disagree-
able jolting gait, appropriately termed the rack, or, as
it is ambiguously called by some horsemen, “the pace.”
It would seem plausible that the very earliest riders
of the horse would very soon discover the steady and
comparatively rapid motion of the amble, just as the
North American Indians have, whose acquaintance with
the animal does not date back much more than two
centuries.
The gait was evidently well known to the ancients.
On the walls of Karnak, the great Rameses is represented
on his return from the wars with prisoners ; he is standing
in a chariot drawn by two ambling horses. The phase
corresponds with one occurring between 4 and 5, series 23.
Horace, in his “ Epistles,” as translated by Francis,
alluding to a retired citizen who enjoyed comfort, says—
“ On horse-back now he ambles at his ease.”
Vegetius, in the fourth century, writes of the “ambu-
latura” being the favourite gait of the wealthy and
indolent Romans, and of the care they bestowed on their
horses to make them perfect in it.
Illuminated manuscripts of the tenth and later centuries
—if they may be considered as reliable evidences—-prove
THE
that ambling was constantly practised by the Anglo-Saxons
and Normans, especially in the diversions of hunting and
| hawking. In the Bayeux Tapestry “one”
Duke William on an ambling horse.
We have the testimony of Chaucer that the Canterbury
Pilgrims made their journey on amblers. The illuminated
manuscript of the “Canterbury Tales,” in the Ellesmere
Collection, confirms the poet’s assertions. The “ good wyf”
is seated, masculine fashion, on an ‘“‘amblere” in a phase
arrives before
exactly corresponding with 2, series 24; the horses of
many others of the company are also represented as
practising the same motion, the favourite position more
or less resembling that of 3, with A or A alone on the
ground. The prologue has—
““A good Wyf was ther bisyde Bathe . . .
Vppon an amblere esely sche sat ;”
ancl Fhe Dalevot Sir Vhopas, Kyt L—
‘His steed was al dappul gray
Hit goth an ambel in the way,
Ful softely and rounde.”
Gower, in “ Confessio Amantis,” has—
”
“On fayre ambulende hors thet set,
and—
““Thei set him on an ambuling palfray.”
In the “ Morte d’Arthur,” translated from the French
in the fifteenth century by Sir Thomas Malory, the “ softe
ambuler” is often alluded to.
AMBLE.
gI
In “ The regulations and Establishment of the House-
hold of Algernon Percy the Fifth Earl of Northumberland.
Begun anno 1512” there occurs—
“Ttem, palfreys for my ladys, to wit, one for my lady, and two for her
gentill-women,
“An amblynge horse for his lordship to journey on dayly.
“A proper amblyng little nagg for his lordship when he gaeth on
hunting or hawking.”
Polydore Virgil, in the fifteenth-sixteenth century, says
“
English horses “are not given to the trot, but excel in the
softer paces of the amble.”
Holinshead, sixteenth century, says, ‘“ The Irish hobbie
is easie in ambling, and verie swift in running.”
Shakespeare was evidently perfectly familiar with this
pleasant mode of progress; he uses it as a metaphor in
“As You Like It,” iii. 2, and in ‘‘ Much Ado about Nothing,”
v. I.
Ben Jonson, also, in “ Every Man in his Humor,” meta-
phorically says, “Out of the old hackney pace, to a fine
easy amble.”
Cervantes, in “ Don Quixote,” ii. 40, as translated by
Skelton, gives an admirable description of this motion:
“This horse . . . ambles in the ayre, without wings, and
he that rides upon him may carry a cup full of water in his
hand, without spilling a jot; he goes so soft and so easie.”
Gervase Markham, a celebrated authority on horses,
writing in 1615, says, “ The ambler. . . is the horse of the
old man, the rich man, and the weak man.”
Gibbon, “Roman Empire,” lviii., speaks of the war-
Y
92 ANIMALS
horse of the knight, until approaching danger, being
usually led by an attendant; the knight himself ‘“ quietly
rode a pad or palfrey of a more easy pace.”
Cowper, in “ Retirement,” says—
“ To cross his ambling pony day by day,
Seems at the best but dreaming life away.”
Sir Walter Scott—-a most accomplished rider, and
thoroughly versed in all the gaits of the horse—scarcely
wrote a poem or a romance without alluding to this
motion. In “Red Gauntlet,” Letter I., we find: “The
black . . . ambled as easily with Sam and the portmanteau
as with you and your load of law-learning.” And in the
same work, Letter XII. : ‘“ Better the nag that ambles a’ the
day, than him that makes a brattle for a mile, and then’s
dune wi the road.”
The characteristics of the gait are well described in the
‘Fortunes of Nigel,” v.: “He again turned his mule's
head westwards, and crossed Temple-Bar at that slow and
decent amble which at once became his rank, and civic
importance.”
Washington Irving, in “ Bracebridge Hall,” says, “ Lady
Lillicraft . . . rode her sleek ambling pony, whose motion
was as easy as a rocking chair.”
Cooper, in “ The Last of the Mohicans,” ii., specifically
describes the motion as “a pace between a trot and a
walk, and at a rate which kept the sure-footed and peculiar
animals they [the ladies] rode, at a fast yet easy amble.”
IN
MOTION.
Tennyson, in “The Lady of Shalott,” recognizes the
suitability of the gait to—
“ An abbot on an ambling pad.”
Macaulay, ‘“ History of England,” iv. 25, records the
third William as “ambling on a favorite horse named Sorrel”
when he met with the accident that cost him his life.
Charles Dickens, in ‘ Barnaby Rudge,” xiv., mentions
“the grey mare, who breaking from her sober amble into a
gentle trot emulated the pace of Edward Chester's horse.”
We find in Lord Lytton’s “My Novel,” iv. rr: “ The
pawl 4. 5 x giving a petulant whisk of her tail, quickened her
amble into a short trot.”
Captain Burnaby, in ‘* Horse-back through Asia Minor,”
xv., testifies that “the pace of a Rahvan, or ambling
horse, is an easy one for the rider.”
The writer has selected these quotations, from a large
number which he has accumulated, for the purpose of
clearly illustrating the distinguishing features of a most
enjoyable method of riding, which is regrettably so little
practised at the present time, except in those parts of the
world—Spain, Spanish America, California, and Kentucky,
for example—where the gait is better known and its
advantages more generally appreciated ; and he can
emphatically endorse the opinions of the authors quoted,
especially those of Cervantes and Irving. Travelling in
Central America he has slept for hours at a time while
riding—like Prior Aymer—“ upon a well-fed ambling mule.”
Wal 8, JAN IMI TB} IL 1B.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge. ¥ sy S Seresiae
| A HALF-STRIDE IN SIX PHASES.
| Horse *‘ Clinton.”
Length of complete stride: 82 inches (2°05 metres). Time-intervals: *055 second. Approximate time of complete stride: *55 second.
93
ee
PMS ros aes
“Ag ae —
ae
cz
Wiel le, JAM 1} IL, 18.
CONTINUATION OF PHASES. SERIES 24,
forse ‘* Clinton.”
AN IRREGULAR STRIDE IN ELEVEN PHASES.
Horse ** Clinton.”
Time-intervals : ‘052 second.
95
4
\
) Adelle, ZVIME 18) Ib, JB.
ONE STRIDE IN ELEVEN PHASES.
ENLARGED FROM A PHOTOGRAPH ON PAPER. OUTLINES FILLED IN.
Forse ‘* Sharon.”
Length of stride: 123 inches. Photographed at Palo Alto, 1879,
O7
°
ie
Woat le AN IMI IB} IL, 18.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.]
ONE STRIDE NEARLY COMPLETED.
The Elephant.
Height of animal: 100 inches (2°50 metres). Length of stride: 140 inches (3°50 metres). Time-intervals : 036 second.
452 strides to a mile. Approximate time of stride: ‘9 second, or a mile in less than 7 minutes.
99
Tish JAIME IIL, 1B,
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.
SOME PHASES SELECTED FROM SERIES 27.
The Elephant.
IOI
~es ee ee atts Sea — we Bee wry
Wiskie
THE trot is a system of progress in which each pair of
diagonal feet are alternately lifted with more or less
synchronism, thrust forward, and again placed on the
ground; the body of the animal making a transit, without
support, twice during each stride.
In this gait there is no inflexible rule as to whether
a fore-foot or its diagonal hind-foot, in their respective
steps, is first in being lifted and placed on the ground ;
it is, however, usual for a horse, especially when trotting
fast, to give precedence to a fore-foot.
A good example of this gait is given in series 28—a stride
by a celebrated trotter, photographed at Palo Alto in 1870.
TIO:
SOME PHASES OF THE TROT.
10
In phase 1 @ is about to follow the example of
the other three feet, and will presently leave the horse
without support until 4, when A is found preparing for
immediate contact, to be followed without much delay
by O. 5 and 6 show the right fore-leg in a nearly
vertical position, with A elevated nearly to its shoulder.
& and O render combined support until a period that
occurs between 8 and 9, when & is lifted, and leaves O
exercising its final propulsive force. Two steps, or one-
half of the stride, have now been made. The remaining
two steps are executed in practically the same manner;
the stride is completed in 18, where the limbs occupy
,
aT
er Es
gate
104 ANIMALS
almost precisely the same relative positions in which we
found them in 1. The two remaining phases commence
another stride.
As no chronograph was used in the investigation of
1879, the time made in a mile, or fraction of a mile, was
kept by a stop-watch. The stride illustrated was one of
three hundred and ten, or thereabouts, made by the horse
around a mile track in two minutes and sixteen seconds.
A mile has been trotted over in several seconds less time,
but the series fairly represents the stride of a first-class
trotting horse at the height of his speed.
The length of the stride is readily measured. The
lines on the track were twelve inches apart; they show
the distance to have been approximately two hundred
and four inches, sixty-six of which were made without
contact with the ground. Some horses making a stride
of not much greater length have been photographed, with
the result of showing the transit, without support, to be
fully one-half the length of the stride; this, of itself, is,
however, no evidence of a more rapid motion than when
the feet are on the ground for a longer period.
In the analyzed stride the sequence of phases are—
acee.
7 8 I
For the purpose of instituting a comparison between
IN
MOTION.
the strides of a trot made under different conditions, this
same horse was saddled, and went around the track with
a jockey on his back. The time was three seconds more,
the stride nine inches less, and the distance over which
the horse was carried by its momentum, free from contact,
was reduced by twenty-four inches.
As the consecutive phases recorded above are not
invariably followed, even by the same horse, in con-
sequence, perhaps, of inequalities on the surface of the
track, or from some other cause, it will be a safer plan to
give a broader significance to a stride of the trot, and
to represent it with a more elastic diagram.
I 2 3
4 I
For general purposes this definition is perhaps sufficiently
exact.
Series 29 is of a good, well-trained horse, going at a
moderate speed, with an easy stride.
Series 30 is an example of a stride free from the
restrictions of harness or a rider.
Series 33 determines that, no matter how heavily built
a horse may be, or how slowly he is trotting, the legs
relinquish the support of the body twice during each
stride; the feet may be merely dragged over the surface,
but for a time they are practically inert. This occurs in the
WIE WIROT, 105
trot of all animals ; it is demonstrated by the ox, wapiti, eland,
fallow-deer, dog, and the cat, in their respective seriates.
On p. 119 are four phases selected from the stride of
a high-stepping trotter, which demonstrates in a decidedly
pronounced manner the usual sequence of foot-fallings ;
the high action, however, is not conducive to speed, as
much time and labour is wasted in unnecessary exertion.
About a century ago Garrard, an artist of note, painted
a picture of the Duke of Hamilton riding a horse, trotting,
entirely clear of the ground. The phase seems to have
been an innovation that was not acceptable either to other
artists or to the public.
We have seen, in the Preface, that so recently as
twenty-five years ago, it was the common opinion of those
who were supposed to have studied the motion of a horse,
that while trotting he always had at least one foot in
contact with the ground.
The Romans were familiar with this pace; but as they
were accustomed to the amble, they did not appreciate it.
They called a trotting horse a “
negative evidence that a racking horse was unknown to them.
succussator,” or shaker; a
S00e5,Geneve
References to the trot are frequent in English poetry.
Chaucer alludes to it in ‘‘The Merchant’s Tale;” and
Spenser, in “ Faerie Queene,” iv. 8, says—
“Whose steadie hand was faine his steede to guyde,
And all the way from trotting hard to spare:
So was his toyle the more, the more that was his care.”
Sir Philip Sidney, “Arcadia,” ii.: “I flatly ran away
from him toward my horse, who trotting after the com-
PRIA 4 oS
The gait was evidently not a favourite one of Shake-
speare’s; in a metaphor, “As You Like It,” iii. 2, Rosalind
Says, OP Wrhams oo « (toes Inavecl”
Swift, on the Gulliver, in “A
Voyage to the Houyhnhnms,” x., to look upon their “ gait
and gesture with delight,” and took it “as a great
compliment” when his friends, on his return, told him
that he “trotted like a horse.”
Scott, in nearly all his romances, speaks of the motion,
contrary, CaUuSe€sS
with high, round, full, hard, reasonable, rapid, stumbling,
or other prefix.
SOME PHASES IN THE FAST TROT OF A HORSE.
oa ee Sr ok: OUT ? = “Es:
Wish is IIR ©) 1.
>
Copyright, 1881, by Eadweard Muybridge.| SC seniess 28.
ONE STRIDE IN EIGHTEEN PHASES.
ENLARGED FROM A PHOTOGRAPH ON PAPER, PRINTED IN 1879.
forse ‘* Edgington.”
Length of stride: 204 inches (515 metres). Free from contact with the ground: 66 inches (1°65 metres).
Approximate time of stride: *44 second. Strides to a mile: 310.
This series was photographed at Palo Alto, 1879, is absolutely free from ‘‘ retouching,” and was synthetically reproduced, and exhibited by projection with the Zodpraxi-
scope at San Francisco, 1880; at Paris, 1881 ; and at the Royal Institution and Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1882.
107
Wished, WIROy 1.
f
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.) Z SERIES 29.
ONE STRIDE IN EIGHTEEN PHASES.
Florse ‘* Daisy.”
Length of stride: 118 inches (2°96 metres).
109
a eas © CNS ernie se Ps ee
Wishie, WIRO) WT.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.)
Length of complete stride: 163 inches (4°12 imetres).
Approximate time of complete stride: ‘65 second.
Time-intervals :
»—
A HALF-STRIDE IN NINE PHASES, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM TWO POINTS OF VIEW.
Horse ** Eagle.”
"045 second.
SERIES 30.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.)
VW fate, I IR ©) 1.
oe: aris = ESTEE F
Wisi, TROT,
887, by Ladweard Muybridge.| ——> SERIES 31-
ONE STRIDE, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM TWO POINTS OF VIEW.
Horse ‘‘ Beauty.”
Iength of stride: 112 inches (2°80 metres). Time-intervals: *052 second. Approximate time of stride: 55 second.
Winkle, WiRO 1,
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.) rd SERIES 32-
ONE STRIDE, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM TWO POINTS OF VIEW.
Forse *‘ Elberon.”
Time-intervals: *o046 second. Approximate time of stride: *46 second.
= > = = = — = : —— —
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.)
A HALF-STRIDE IN NINE PHASES, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM TWO POINTS OF VIEW.
Horse ** Dusel.”
Time-intervals : ‘056 second. Approximate time of stride: ‘95 second.
117
| Wish ie, WIROA.
SOME PHASES IN THE MOTION OF A HORSE TROTTING AT A HIGH RATE OF SPEED.
Ay Genele
hveard Muybridge.]
SOME PHASES IN THE MOTION OF A HORSE TROTTING SLOWLY.
119
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Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridee.) Sua. NE |
OIE SwiRVOVE JUN TEV I ETEIND IRPIRVAS IES. Ril
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Length of stride: 104 inches (2°60 metres). Time-interyals : "056 second. Approximate time of stride: *78 second. } fi
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A HALF-STRIDE IN THIRTEEN PHASES.
The Wapiti, or Elk. We IM
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Length of complete stride: 148 inches (3°50 metres). Time-intervals: *032 second. Approximate time of complete stride: *73 second. ] } iii)
123 i]
Wists, IWIR@ Ar.
36.
SERIES
IN UNEQUAL PHASES.
-STRIDE
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ONE STRIDE IN TEN PHASES,
The Fallow Deer.
Time-intervals : ‘069 second. Approximate time of stride: *62 second.
Wlal i WR OW.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.]
ONE STRIDE, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM
The Dog (Mastiff).
129
SP Semis 38.
TWO POINTS OF VIEW.
SS
TWiT AIR OI,
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybriige.
AN IRREGULAR STRIDE.
The Dog (Mastiff).
Length of stride: 52 inches (1°30 metres). Time-intervals: ‘110 second.
Approximate time of completed movement : 1:21 seconds.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridee.|
> SERIES 40.
ONE STRIDE IN TEN PHASES,
The Cat.
Time-intervals : ‘035 second.
131
= ows
—
Eh le RGAUC Kk.
In the rack, the legs of the animal are used in lateral
pairs, instead of, as in the trot, diagonal pairs. The same
uncertainty with regard to precedence of the fore or hind
foot-impacts prevails in this gait, as in the trot; in contra-
distinction to the latter, priority is usually given in the
rack to a hind-foot, this being so immediately followed
by its lateral fore that, practically, they may be said to
swing simultaneously.
This being an awkward, and, to the rider, an exceed-
ingly disagreeable method of locomotion, horses are,
happily, rarely trained to its use; when they are, it is for
traction, in the expectation of gaining some slight advan-
tage in point of time, over the trot.
A profile silhouette picture of any phase of the rack
would be indistinguishable from a phase of the trot.
Series 41 is representative of an average stride during
a moderately fast rate of speed. In 1 the horse has just
alighted on O; A is preparing to follow. 2 shows both
legs nearly vertical; and 4, a transit without support, A
somewhat elevated, and @ skimming over the surface.
In 5 the right laterals have assumed the functions of
support, which on the evidence of the pasterns was com-
menced by @. Two steps, or one-half the stride, are
now finished ; the remaining phases lead to the discovery
of the following two steps having been completed in
practically the same manner. A diagram of this stride
may be therefore shown as—
FETT ERE
Taking into consideration that precedence is not in-
I
variably given to a hind-foot; a stride of the rack, for
general purposes, may be represented as—
134 ANIMALS
The rack is a gait natural to the camel, the giraffe,
and some few other animals; it is said to have been
occasionally observed in the dog.
If the horse was ever trained to rack for the use of a
rider, it was probably for some one who wished to subject
himself to a penance; the personal experience of those
who have tried it, induces an imaginary comparison with
the torture which, a few centuries ago, it was the custom
to inflict on recalcitrants with an instrument from which
the gait probably takes its name.
No references have been found descriptive of the
sensations experienced by the rider of a racking horse;
but as the gait is precisely similar to that of the camel,
a few quotations may interest those who contemplate a
ride over the desert on that animal. There is, however,
a breed of camel in Africa called the ‘“hygeen,” whose
motion is more pleasant than the ordinary riding or packing
animal.
Series 42 is a moderately long stride of an Egyptian
camel. As with other animals, long confinement had
impaired its capability of speed. For artistic purposes
the motion is well represented.
Morgan, in his “ History of Algiers,” says the camel
“makes nothing of holding its rapid pace, which is a
most violent hard trot, for four and twenty hours at a
stretch.”
Beckford, in “ Vathek”: “ The rough trot of Alboufaki
[a camel] awoke them in consternation.”
G. W. Curtis, “The Howadji in Syria”: “The trot
of the usual travelling camel is very hard .. . but
IN
MOTION.
MacWhirter's [his own camel's] exertions in that kind
shook my soul within me.”
It will be observed that each of these travellers speaks
of the camel’s gait as a “trot.” The author can find
no evidence of a camel ever having been trained to trot ;
it certainly is not its natural gait.
In the sixteenth century, George Peele, in an Eclogue,
says—
“His Rain-deer racking with proud and stately pace
Giveth to his flock a right beautiful grace.”
The application of “racking” to the pace of the rein-
deer seems to require some explanation. That animal, like
other deer, trots; and no trotting animal racks naturally.
This system of motion, under the illogical name of
“pace,” has, mysteriously, been confounded with its very
antithesis of gaits—the amble. Why a name applicable,
in its broad sense, to motion of any kind, should ever
have been allotted to a special method of animal pro-
gress, is a question that defies elucidation. The absurdity
of its use as a distinctive gait is self-evident.
Dante (Cary), in “ Purgatory,” xxiv., has—
“And as a man
Tired with the motion of a trotting steed
”
Slacks pace, and stays behind .. .
Scott, in ‘Rob Roy,” iii., remarks, “ The trot is the
true pace for the hackney.”
“Guy Mannering,” xiii.: “ Dumple, . - - quickening his
”
pace, trotted about a mile
a —
THE
“Red Gauntlet,” Letter VI.: “The rider. . . slackened
his horse’s pace from a slow trot to a walk.”
And in the “Ingoldsby Legends” (the Execution)
we find—
“Adown Piccadilly and Waterloo-place,
Went the high-trotting mare at a very quick pace.”
RACK. 13
|
ur
The designs which seem to indicate the rack on
Etruscan, Greek, and Roman vases are probably due to
artistic indifference. It is an unnecessary and unnatural
gait of the horse, and it is scarcely probable that the
ancients trained the animal to its use.
Ss
Wiel IRAC IK,
; <K SERIES 41.
ONE STRIDE IN NINE PHASES, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM TWO POINTS OF VIEW.
LTorse ‘* Pronto.”
Length of stride: 146 inches (3°70 metres), Time-intervals: *076 second. Approximate time of stride: *64 second.
WIBUIE, IRIN IK.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.] »—
A HALF-STRIDE IN FIFTEEN PHASES.
The Egyptian Camel.
Length of complete stride: 146 inches (3°70 metres). Time-intervals : 024 second.
Approximate time of complete stride : *65 second.
139
SERIES 42-
WISI, IRUANIC IK.
[Sanne a. Geneve
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.]
SOME PHASES OF THE RACK.
Horse ** Pronto.”
T4l
aS er Le
|
Dre CAIN we IK,
We have hitherto devoted our attention to systems
of locomotion which permit the division of a stride into
two co-ordinate parts, each of which, with a reciprocation
of limb action, is essentially a repetition of the other.
We now come to a different class of motion, the strides
of which cannot be so divided, and each one must be
considered as a unit, unsuited for equitable partition.
The canter has the same sequence of foot-fallings as
the walk, but without the same regularity of intervals,
and during a portion of the stride the body has a longer
or shorter unsupported transit. In this gait the spring
is invariably taken from a fore-foot, while the landing is
effected on the diagonal hind-foot.
Series 43 demonstrates the spring on the point of
being taken by A in 4; @ is not squarely on the ground
until phase 9 is attained; the other three feet in the
meanwhile are being gradually thrust forward. In 12 A
comes to the assistance of @, when the support is admin-
istered by the right laterals, but for a very brief period;
O quickly follows in the wake of its diagonal, and in
the next phase the rear part of its shoe is in close
So rapidly does the following
usually take place, that the ear is frequently incapable
proximity to the ground.
of recognizing an interval between the successive sounds
We now find ®@ AO engaged in
supporting the body, & having the greatest strain.
At an ordinary speed the first hind-foot to fall is
lifted in advance of the second fore-foot’s descent, and,
of the foot-impacts.
as in 16 and 17, the diagonals assume the responsibility
A is now brought to the relief of AO;
the former, however, soon dissolves the tripartite, and
of support.
relinquishes its offices in favour of the left laterals; this
partnership is of brief duration, for in 22 we find O
deserting its post, and leaving A to its solitary labours,
which it satisfactorily performs through several phases,
when it joins its companions in the enjoyment of a
period of rest, from which @ will again be the first to
go to work.
From this analysis we ascertain the
phases in a representative stride to be—
sequence of
144 ANIMALS IN MOTION.
Had the spring been made from A the landing would,
of course, have been made on O, the others falling in
regular order.
During a slow canter A will sometimes be dis-
covered acting in association with the other three, and
the curious phase presented of a five-mile gait being
realized, with all four of the feet in contact with the
ground at the same instant.
A PHASE OF THE SLOW CANTER.
A EEETTY
The earliest reference to the canter in English litera-
ture is probably in a seventeenth-century book by
Brathwait, ‘‘Clitus’ Whimsies,” who alludes to the gait
s “a Canterbury.”
Dr. Thomas Sheridan, in a poetical letter to Swift,
saysS—
»
““When your Pegasus cantered in triple and rid fast.”
Dennis, ‘On the Preliminary to the Dunciad,” has:
“The Pegasus of Pope, like a Kentish post-horse, is
always on the Canterbury.”
Burns, in “Tam Samson's Elegy,’ and in “Tam
o’Shanter,” refers to the “canter” simply; as does also
Combe, in “Dr. Syntax,” xxvii. and xxxviil.
Scott, in “Waverley,” xv., “St. Ronan’s Well,” i,
“
and “Guy Mannering,” xxiii, writes of ‘“cantering,”
“easy canter,” and ‘“cantered.” In “Talisman,” xxi,
“Old Mortality,” xliv., and “Red Gauntlet,” Letter IV.,
he alludes to the same gait as “a hand-gallop.”
3yron, Fennimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Tenny-
son, Lytton, Dickens, Smedley, Dobson, Darley, Sir F.
H. Doyle, Charles Reade, Dr. Livingstone, Saxe, and
many other authors, in prose and poetry, discard
the “bury,” and advert to the motion simply as a
Mcantete
The notion of this gait of the horse deriving its
name from its association with the ‘‘ Canterbury Pilgrims ”
is untenable. Many passages in the “Tales,” and the
illuminations in the Ellesmere manuscript, disprove the
supposition, as we have already seen in the ‘“amble.”
THE
It is far more likely that the alternate rising and
falling of the fore- and hind-quarters of a horse in the
execution of the movement, suggested a resemblance
to the alternate tilting or “canting” of a plank on
which children sit in the game called “see-saw.” If
CANTER.
145
a saddle were to be arranged over the fulcrum, and
the plank rapidly but gently “canted” up and down,
a rider on the saddle would not fail to experience a
sensation similar to that produced by the canter of a
horse.
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Copyright, 1887, dy Eadweard Muybridge.
ONE STRIDE IN TWENTY-THREE PHASES. i|
fforse ** Daisy,” |
Length of stride: 96 inches (2°40 metres). Approximate time of stride: ‘60 second.
147
— \
———————— ——————— — | )
. | ;
| Eee “© AUNT ER:
—
ONE STRIDE IN TEN PHASES. !
Horse * Clinton.”
Length of stride: 108 inches (2‘70 metres).
iS)
L
o
(2)
Approximate time of stride: °*5
149
THE CANTER.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.)
SOME PHASES OF THE CANTER FROM SERIES 44.
florse ‘* Clinton.”
151
|
WsLIe (CA IN| AP ape
, by Eadweard Muy e.] Ke Sewies 45.
ONE STRIDE PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM TWO POINTS OF VIEW.
Thorough-bred Mare ** Annte.”
Length of stride: 114 inches.
ur
us
4
ar Gi eeu ©):
oe
Tue word “gallop,” in its various forms of spelling, is
now almost universally employed to designate the most
rapid of all quadrupedal movements. The action is
adopted by nearly all animals, in one or the other of its
methods, when, from caprice, persuasion, or necessity,
they exercise their utmost power for the attainment of
their greatest speed.
Photographic analysis demonstrates two systems of
galloping ; one in which the foot-impacts individually
succeed each other in a way that may be conveniently
represented by the points of a cross—
4
3
or
TRANSVERSE-GALLOP.
the other, in which the limb movements and consequent
tr
foot-fallings succeed each other in a rotative manner,
which may be roughly represented by a circle—
(op
=)
ROTATORY-GALLOP.
In these diagrams, the notation commences with the
fall of a hind-foot on the ground after an unsupported
(On
r=)
transit of the body.
To these two systems of galloping, the names of
ii ‘ Pah 5 et ok 6
“transverse-gallop” and “rotatory-gallop” may appro
priately be given; if they are too cumbersome for popular
usage, the prefixes ‘‘cross” and “rota” respectively can,
perhaps, be correctly applied. ‘‘Round” might have
been used in association with the latter, but the word is
already in use to imply a rapid progress by any gait.
a
b
156 ANIMALS
The transverse-gallop is employed by the horse, and
by the greater number of other animals, both horny and
soft-footed; the rotatory-gallop is adopted by the dog,
the deer, and some other animals.
We will devote our attention, firstly, to the transverse
or cross-gallop.
Series 46 illustrates twenty-one consecutive phases,
which occurred in one stride of a thorough-bred Ken-
tucky horse, exerting all his power to gallop at his highest
speed.
For convenience of reference, the analysis commences
with phase 2, and is completed with 22, although it will
be noticed an inch or so more of progress is necessary
to obtain an exactly corresponding phase to that with
which we commence; and for the greater convenience
of the student it will be sufficient to assume that the
distance-intervals of the phases are thirteen and three-
quarter inches. The time-intervals, as recorded by the
chronograph, are exactly twenty-two one-thousandths of
a second each.
In this stride, the spring is effected from A, and we
soon find the horse with all his legs more or less flexed
under the body, affording no support thereto until a
period that occurs between 6 and 7; the exact phase of
first contact did not happen to be photographed.
In 7 O is firmly on the ground; the pastern has
exercised its duties as a spring or a cushion to lessen the
concussion; the heel being already in close proximity to
the ground, into which it is impressed in 8 and 9. The
distance the body was hurled through the air, with the
IN
MOTION.
final assistance of A, was about seventy-eight inches in
a little more than the tenth of a second.
In 10 @ has just commenced assisting O; they do
not, however, long remain in company, for in 12 O is
already lifted, and upon @® devolves the unaided duty
of support. O and @ present the shortest distance-interval
of combined support, forty-six inches only; 13 discloses
A in actual contact with the ground, but the pastern has
not yet commenced to bend; support is now furnished
by the diagonals at a distance of ninety inches from each
other. As the leg of A becomes vertical, the pastern
gradually becomes horizontal, until in 14 and 15 its joint
is impressed into the ground. The great weight of the
horse commences in 14 to be thrown on A, which receives
no assistance until a little beyond 17, in which phase the
shoe of A is yet about two inches above the track. The
combined support of A and A is of very brief duration,
for the great distance they are apart (sixty inches) renders
much progress, without separation, impossible.
In 18 A has been on the ground for a consider-
able time, as is demonstrated by the nearly vertical
position of the leg, and the consequent bending of the
pastern.
It is interesting to note the enormous amount of work
this leg has to do, for in its duplex offices of support and
propulsion it receives no assistance through eight intervals,
a distance of much more than one hundred inches. If
each of the legs of the horse had carried him an equal
distance during this stride, it would have measured more
than twelve yards.
THE
For the purpose of giving a concise demonstration of
the stride of a first-class thorough-bred horse, in fine con-
dition and in good training, over a well-kept racing-track,
some of the phases of series 46 are reproduced, and
enlarged, on p. 173. The nine phases show seven different
methods of support, and a period of unsupported transit.
They are, as in all orthodox strides of the transverse-
gallop, when the spring is made from A—
tEEdtet ty
Had the spring been made from A, the landing would
have taken place on @, and corresponding alterations
would have been made in the sequence of the other foot-
impacts.
This stride is not, of course, presented as a record-
breaker—longer strides are frequently made, and a mile
galloped over in less proportionate time—but it may be
accepted as a fair average stride of a first-class thorough-
bred horse, made during a race with equally good
competitors, a second or so before reaching the winning-
post.
Series 47 is the stride of a thorough-bred mare; it is
interesting for comparison with others.
In seriates 48 and 49, the horses are not squarely
GALLOP. 157
on a regular gait, having had to swerve from a straight
course to permit synchronous fore-shortened phases to
be made.
The ineffectual attempt of a heavily built draught-
horse to emulate the speed of a thorough-bred when, with
the same succession of impacts, a hind-foot or a fore-foot
is sometimes flat on the ground in association with two
other feet, as in series 51, results in a gait which may
be called an irregular, or abnormal gallop.
The transverse succession of foot-fallings is found in
the gallop of the buffalo, the goat, the camel, and the
cat, as illustrated by their respective seriates. The latter
animal, having a greater flexibility of movement, combines
with the orthodox stride a spring into the air from its
hind feet; the foot-impacts, however, have the same
sequence as those of the bear, raccoon, and hog, as
demonstrated on p. 201.
It is probable that future research will discover—
with the horse and some other animals—during extreme
speed, an unsupported transit from one anterior foot to
the other.
Some writers claim for the horse a more rapid gait
than that of galloping, to which they have given the name
of “running.” It is definitely proved that the rapid gallop
of the horse is executed in one way only; at present
he has no faster gait. In its reference to quadrupedal
movements, “running” can be applied only as it is to
a stream of water running down a hill, a locomotive
running along a railroad, or an ivy plant running up
a wall.
i
f
i.
158 ANIMALS
Whether it would be possible to obtain a higher
rate of hereditary speed, after horses had been taught
to practise the rota instead of the cross - gallop, is
problematical.
In the rotatory or rota-gallop, a different system of
foot-fallings prevails; the consecutive supports revolve,
as it were, in one or the other direction around the
body of the animal. This method of galloping is satis-
factorily demonstrated by series 56, two strides of a
small coursing hound, with a national reputation for
speed, and, although only about 16 inches igh, the
winner of many trophies from larger animals.
We will commence the analysis with phase 6, which
exhibits the hound on A, and about to spring therefrom
into the air, where we find him in 7, with all the legs
flexed under the body; the two fore feet far to the rear
of @, on which he presently alights, and quickly follows
with O, from which he takes another spring, and in 9 we
find a phase somewhat resembling the unique modern
conventionality of the galloping horse. After a flight with
outstretched legs, the landing takes place on A. In
11 the support is transferred to A, and we arrive at a
virtual repetition of the phase with which we commenced
in 6.
In series 57 a powerful, heavily built mastiff is doing
his best to emulate the speed of the racing hound; his
weight, however, is against him, and although he effects
a spring from a fore-foot, it is beyond his capability to
spring from a hind-foot.
Owing to the extreme heat of the day, the manipulation
IN
MOTION.
of series 58 leaves much to be desired ; but it is a good
illustration of the stride of a fallow-deer in captivity,
followed by its frightened fawn.
In phase 2 A is on the ground, and is followed by
A; had not long confinement in a small park impaired
the elasticity which the deer would have exhibited in its
natural state, a phase would have occurred between those
of 3 and 4, in which all the feet would have been off
the ground. A is followed by O, and that again by @.
Between 6 and 7 the animal was entirely free from
support, which now begins to be furnished by A, with
a recapitulation of 2. The fawn in the meanwhile was
soaring aloft, nor did it descend until a considerable
distance beyond where we leave it in 9.
The wapiti, or, as it is sometimes called, the elk, has
the same rotative sequence of limb movements and foot-
impacts as the dog and the deer; so also has the
antelope, and it is probable it will be found with the
moose.
The diagram reproduces at a glance the sequential
phases of the rota-gallop; or, the rotation may be accom-
plished in the reverse direction.
TE
) 4 8 I
RF a A ne
THE
Istana Gere le
I 2
4
WwW
SILHOUETTES SELECTED FROM THE RESULTS OF THE PALO ALTO INVESTIGATION, 18
(GOMIL ILE (OUP?
ret hall lt ie
159
6 7 8 9
72-79, ALL OF WHICH RESEMBLE PHASES THAT HAVE BEEN, AT VARIOUS
A
TIMES, ADOPTED BY ARTISTS AS THEIR INTERPRETATION OF THE GALLOP OF THE HORSE,
A history of the artistic delineation of the gallop is
worthy of attention; it is hoped, one will some day be
written, and comprehensively illustrated.
Pending its appearance, it is impossible, in this volume,
to do more than casually refer to the expressions given
to this method of locomotion by the artists of a few
nations, at different epochs, as represented by the horse ;
and in general terms to consider their predominant
characteristics.
With this object only in view it will be sufficient
to arrange the prevailing traits of its treatment in three
broad classifications.
First, the Primitive ; suggested to the artist by keen
observation, and expressed by him with entire freedom
from conventionality.
The distinguishing features of this type are the flexure
of all the legs more or less under the body, with one
or both the hind feet free from contact with the ground.
Examples from nature, the impression of which
influenced, as it continues to influence, the untaught and
the unconventional artist, may be found in figures 1 and 2
of the line of silhouettes; phases 5, 6, and 7, series 46;
and 1 to 4, series 52.
Second, the Ancient. In which the support is
rendered by the two hind feet, the anterior legs are
more or less flexed, with their feet in close proximity,
and raised at various elevations above the ground,
Figures 3 and 5 of the silhouettes; phase 6, series 64;
and 2 of series 66, resemble this interpretation.
Third, the Modern. Which, so far as it is used in
depicting a regular progressive motion of the horse,
exhibits an entire absence of careful observation, unpre-
judiced impression, or serious reasoning.
In its most pronounced realization it is characterized
by a body, neck, and head, all of abnormal length, and
arranged in a nearly horizontal line. The anterior legs,
in almost parallel lines, have their feet a few inches below,
Both hind feet are thrust
far to the rear, with their shoes turned upwards.
and in advance of, the nose.
There is no phase in the motion of a horse photo-
graphed from life that can be referred to as an example
of this curious treatment of the gallop, nor will any
l
160 ANIMALS
combination of phases in the motion of the animal convey
an impression resembling it. A suggestion of it may
be found in figure 9 of the silhouettes; but it may perhaps
be more correctly represented by phase 16, p. 225, which
occurs in the leap of a cat.
The segregation of the innumerable different repre-
sentations of the gallop into three principal groups is, of
course, purely arbitrary. Each group is susceptible of
subdivision, especialiy that classified as Ancient, of which
certain differences may be noted in the Egyptian, the
Assyrian, the Grecian, the Roman, and the Byzantine
method of treatment. The grouping is merely intended
to indicate the general idea which seems to have influenced
the artist when his evident intention was to represent the
animal at full speed, in accordance with the prevailing
fashion of his nation or his time.
It is as well, perhaps, to remark, that in the line of
silhouettes, figures 1, 2, and 9 only, are phases which
occur in regular progressive motion; 3 and 4 are selected
from seriates of preparations for a leap over a hurdle ;
7 and 8 represent the recovery from the first contact with
the ground after a leap; 5 and 6 illustrate phases of the
capering which a horse sometimes indulges in before
starting on a regular method of progress.
To the student who wishes to inquire more minutely
into the history of the artistic gallop, the following refer-
ences to some examples of its treatment may be found
useful.
In the Museum of Art at New York is a well-preserved
porphyry cylinder, unearthed by the archeologist Ward
IN
MOTION.
on the plains of Chaldzea, and pronounced to be of Hittite
manufacture, of date probably 3000 to 2000 B.c.
Among other designs thereon are the figures of two
men with their arms upraised, stampeding a herd of cattle,
which are evidently fleeing from them at their utmost
speed. The animals are represented with all their legs
flexed under their bodies, somewhat like those of the
buffalo (2, 3, and 4, series 52).
In the ‘‘Skandinaviens Hallristningar Arkeologisk
Afhandling,” 1848, Dr. Holmberg reproduces some pre-
historic sculptures on a rock at Tegneby, Sweden, Among
other figures are several horses, and two groups of horse-
men, charging apparently in battle. These designs are
probably of earlier date than any others yet found in
Northern Europe, and they represent the animals with
their legs flexed under their bodies.
On an archaic Mycenzean vase, reproduced in the
“Journal of Hellenic Studies,” vol. vii., are some figures
of a horned animal resembling an ibex, the legs of which
are arranged in the same manner.
More recently, the Alaskans, in their etchings on ivory,
and, further south, other North American Indians, on their
painted buffalo-skins, were accustomed to the use of
similar phases as an indication of speed.
An intelligent child, known to the author, who, having
a talent for drawing, and, happily, not familiar with the
conventional representation of the gallop, was asked to
sketch her idea of a runaway horse, which she had seen,
produced a similar phase as her impression of the action.
A reference to phases 2 to 6, series 46, demonstrates
THE GALLOP. 161
that during this portion of the stride of a horse at full
gallop, all four of the legs are flexed, and their feet in
close proximity, especially in 3, 4, and_5, where they
remain without much independent action for a compara-
tively long period of time, with the result that this class
of phase has a stronger and more lasting effect on the
retina of the eye than any other class, and conveys to the
unprejudiced and to the unsophisticated observer an
impression of extreme rapidity.
The horse does not make its appearance in Egyptian
art until about 1500 8.c., or shortly before the Israelite
exodus. For many centuries it seems to have been used
for no other purpose than to drag a chariot in warfare or
in a triumphal procession. No evidence of its use for
riding purposes appears for nearly a thousand years later.
The battles of Seti and of his son Rameses, carved
on the walls of Karnak and other temples, include numbers
of chariots, each drawn by two horses in the conventional
phase prescribed by law.
which represents an incident of the leap—having been
The probability of this phase—
chosen as an emblem of the triumphant monarch sur-
mounting every obstacle that interposed itself between
him and victory, may be worthy of consideration. What-
ever its origin, the remarkable fact is disclosed, that this
phase of an entirely different and accidental motion of
the horse was accepted, with sometimes the modifications
introduced by the Greeks, the Romans, or the Byzantines,
almost universally, as the symbol of the gallop, by gene-
ration after generation of artists for more than thirty
centuries.
In the twelfth century B.c. it appears on a slab of
marble, discovered at Mycenz, representing a warrior in
a chariot drawn by two horses.
The explorations of Layard prove that in the eighth
century B.c. the horse was used by the Assyrians, both
for dragging chariots and for riding; several bas-reliefs
in the British Museum illustrate the animal being used
for these purposes, and with the same indications of rapid
motion as those prevailing on the banks of the Nile.
In the gallery of the Louvre is a slab of this period
from the temple at Assos, representing a centaur galloping
Babylonian coins indicate a similar
treatment of the movement.
Even in the caricatures of these times, no other phase
seems to have been thought of. In a papyrus, depicting
a battle between cats and rats, the animals in the chariots
of the attacking parties are, virtually, copies of the horses
in the same manner.
at Karnak; and a Pheenician vase in the British Museum
exhibits in a significant manner the defeat of an Egyptian
warrior, who is launching a farewell arrow to the rear,
while a solitary horse in his chariot, with anterior feet
high in the air, is being driven, with presumed rapidity,
homewards.
A Greek gem of the sixth century B.c., has a beauti-
fully executed intaglio engraving of a winged goddess in
a chariot, driving two horses in a slightly modified style
to that of the Egyptians.
The Nereid monument, now in the British Museum,
originally erected at Xanthos, Lycia, four centuries B.c.,
has a number of horses and dogs engaged in the chase,
y
162 ANIMALS IN MOTION.
all of which, with some slight alterations in the fore legs
of the animals, are treated in the same manner.
Although the Greek artists, even at the zenith of
their fame, frequently represented the gallop in accordance
with its borrowed interpretation, their conceptions of the
fast motion of a horse were not always restrained by the
traditions of the past. Many works of art may be found
in which rapidity of movement is expressed in phases
which exhibit close attention to natural law.
Their teachings soon began to exercise a salutary
influence among the artists of other nations with whom
they had communication. A curious instance of this may
be seen on a silver dish of Phoenician manufacture,
discovered by di Cesnola, on the island of Cyprus.
On the border are two horses attached to a chariot,
and represented in the orthodox Egyptian fashion ; imme-
diately in front are two men, apparently Assyrians, riding
horses, in which Greek treatment of a phase occurring in
the gallop is very evident.
The Pheenicians were not a creative or art-originating
people, and their designs of moving animals seem to
have been copied at random, according to the tastes of
their patrons.
In the Panathenaic procession there are not any
horses to which the action of the gallop was intended
to be given. Some appear anxious to start off at a rapid
rate, others suggest a sudden check from a fast motion,
but none are making a sustained rapid progress.
The proportions of many of these horses are suscep-
tible of criticism.
During the third century B.c., horses with riders began
to appear in Egyptian designs, and a phase of motion is
used which exhibits an innovation probably due to Greek
influence. The earliest gold coin used by the British is
of the second century p.c. It has for its obverse a warrior
seated on a horse, the motion of which is more suggestive
of a later treatment of the gallop by the Byzantines, than
it is of that generally adopted either by the earlier Greeks
or by the Romans. It is of similar design to a coin
of the Macedonian Philip, and was probably stamped
in Greece. Some of the British coins of the time of
Boadicea bear the effigy of a singularly disjointed horse,
undoubtedly a home-manufactured copy of the design on
the phillipus.
The Roman modification of the gallop can be advan-
tageously studied from the designs on the column of
Trajan, and on the arch of Titus. The extraordinary
projection of the fore legs of many ancient sculptures of
horses, of which the Biga at Rome is a well-known
example, is worthy of attention.
The gallop of the Byzantine Greeks had, probably,
its best illustrations on the column of Theodosius, at Con-
stantinople. Some of the horses have a resemblance to
figures 5, 6, and 7 of the line of silhouettes.
In the British Museum is a pilaster from the Tope at
Amravati, India, carved in the sixth century, which has the
front portions of several horses and other animals, galloping
in compliance with Egyptian rules; and a number of elabo-
rate mosaics, of the same period, from Carthage, in which
horses, hounds, stags, lions, hares, gazelles, and wild boars
WIEN (GLNIE LOE? 163
are represented in hunting scenes, in accordance with the
same standard.
If the illustrations in Porter's work faithfully represent
the carvings on a Persian temple of the same century, at
Tackt-i-Bostan, the designer of some reliefs representing a
horse, a deer, and a wild boar seems to have anticipated
the interpretations of the nineteenth-century artists.
The ruins of a temple at Angkor Wat, on the borders
of Cambodia and Siam, built probably in the ninth century,
by a race of people called the Khmers, exhibit carvings on
stone of several chariots occupied by Mongolians, and
drawn by horses which, in their expression of motion, have
a striking resemblance to some of those on the Parthenon
frieze.
The outlines of a gigantic horse, cut into the side of
a Berkshire hill, in supposed commemoration of a victory
by King Alfred over the Danes, presents the appearance
of having been copied from a Byzantine design.
European artists of this epoch, in their interpretation of
the gallop, seem to have lapsed into the original conven-
tionality. Evidence of this is seen in the miniatures of a
ninth-century Bible in the Vatican library; in the Anglo-
Saxon manuscripts of Prudentius, and of other writers in
the Greek and Latin tongues; and it appears with many
other known and unknown motions on the Bayeux tapestry
of the eleventh century.
In the fourteenth century a remarkable exception to
the rule was painted—probably by Pisano—on the walls of
the Campo-Santo at Pisa.
horse is represented in a phase almost exactly corre-
It is of a mounted knight, whose
sponding with that of 9, series 46—a truthful, if not a
judicious indication of the gallop.
In the miniatures of Froissart may be found the horses
at Karnak; which also served as models to some
illuminations of the “Canterbury Tales,” in the Ellesmere
Collection.
Raffaelle, Titian, and many other Italian artists inclined
toward the Byzantine modification ; not so, however, did
their countryman Guido, nor Albert Durer, nor the greater
number of German, Dutch, and other artists of the fifteenth,
sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, who for their inter-
pretations resorted, without compunction, to the mono-
tonous designs of their predecessors, whose mummies had
been deposited on the banks of the Nile three thousand
years before their copyists were born.
Their rendition of the motion was endorsed by the
mathematician Borelli, and by the veterinarian Newcastle ;
so this ancient symbol of a conquering hero having been
adopted as an emblem of the gallop, continued to be its
one unvarying sign until it disappeared with the eighteenth
century.
About a hundred years ago, the artists of Europe,
apparently with one accord, came to the conclusion that
the rising body, with the bent, uplifted anteriors, and the
contact of the hind feet with the ground, as indulged in by
the ancient sculptors, was inconsistent with the correct
interpretation of speed, and, as if by preconcerted agree-
ment, there suddenly appeared from their various schools
the conventional phase which attained the zenith of its
absurdity in a well-known picture, by a celebrated animal
f
I
COE ie Oe a aries
164 ANIMALS IN
painter, representing ten horses, each a replica of the other,
with limbs extended fore-and-aft, and gliding through the
air, distinguishable from each other only by the colours
of their riders.
Bearing in mind the axiom of Leonardo da Vinci, one
may well suppose the picture was painted with the same
object in view as that with which Don Quixote was written.
“ And yet,” it is sometimes remarked, “ the phase gives
one an impression of rapid motion.” Possibly, but in pre-
cisely the same way as a printed word unconsciously
suggests, through long usage, the sound or the substance
of that which it represents.
If it is impressed on our minds in infancy that a certain
arbitrary symbol indicates an existing fact; if this same
association of emblem and reality is reiterated at the pre-
paratory school, insisted upon at college, and pronounced
MOTION.
correct at the university; symbol and fact—or supposed fact
—become so intimately blended that it is extremely diffh-
cult to disassociate them, even when reason and personal
observation teaches us they have no true relationship.
So it is with the conventional galloping horse; we
have become so accustomed to see it in art that it has
imperceptibly dominated our understanding, and we think
the representation to be unimpeachable, until we throw all
our preconceived impressions on one side, and seek the
truth by independent observation from Nature herself.
During the past few years the artist has become con-
vinced that this definition of the horse’s gallop does not
harmonize with his own unbiased impression, and he is
making rapid progress in his efforts to sweep away
prejudice, and effect the complete reform that ts gradually
but surely coming.
5
A PHASE IN THE GALLOP OF THE HORSE.
Many art designs, both ancient and modern, represent a
horse performing some feat of locomotion, with not merely
that portion of the anterior limb technically called the “fore-
arm,’ but even the “elbow,” thrust forward beyond the nose.
THE GALLOP. 165
For the purpose of ascertaining how far it was possible
for a horse, during regular progress, to extend his fore-
foot, a thorough-bred Kentuckian, noted for his long
stride, was selected for an experiment at Palo Alto in
15709.
The line of silhouettes represents a single phase of
motion—synchronously photographed from five different
points of view—in which one of the fore feet is thrust
forward as far as it is possible for the horse to thrust it
during any method of uniform progressive action.
A vertical line dropped from the nose of the animal
in any one of these simultaneous photographs will intersect
the leg much nearer to the fetlock or the pastern joint
than to the knee.
The five figures are entirely free from any outlining or
retouching.
In literature, the ancient poets and other authors—
according to their translators—seem rarely to have made
use of a distinctive name in their references to the rapid
movements of animals. They apparently preferred to
indicate velocity of motion by some simile, or a com-
parison with the phenomena of nature.
These similitudes abound in Homer. A few selections,
without reference to line or book, are taken from the
“Tliad” as translated by Pope.
Should they interest the reader who is not already
familiar with them, he will do well to read the poet from
beginning to end, giving particular attention to the twenty-
third book, describing the chariot-race at the funeral rites
of Patroclus,
“« High on his car he shakes the flowing reins :
His fiery coursers thunder o’er the plains.”
| “ And now both heroes mount the glittering car:
The bounding coursers rush amidst the war.”
| “ Saturnia lends the lash ; the coursers fly :
Smooth glides the chariot through the liquid sky.”
| “The coursers fly before Ulysses’ bow
Swift as the wind, and white as winter snow.”
“He said ; the driver whirls his lengthful thong:
The horses fly, the chariot smokes along.”
‘“‘He lends the lash: the steeds with sounding feet
Shake the dry field, and thunder towards the fleet.”
| “The affrighted steeds, their dying lords cast down,
Scour o’er the fields, and stretch to reach the town.”
“High o’er his head the circling lash he wields :
The bounding coursers scarcely touch the fields.”
In the “ Odyssey” we find—
“ Ranged in a line the ready racers stand,
Start from the goal, and vanish o’er the strand :
Swift as on wings of wind, upborne they fly,
,
And drifts of rising dust involve the sky.”
Xenophon (Spelman), in the ‘“ Expedition of Cyrus,”
says, “Patagyas ... was seen riding towards them full
speed ;” and in the “ Institution of Cyrus” the horses of
the messengers are said to “ fly swifter than cranes,” which
he, however, doubts.
166 ANIMALS
Ceesar (Clarke), in his commentaries, “ Wars in Gaul,”
writes that ‘“Considius came galloping back;” and in the
“Civil War” that “Pompey ... rode full speed to
Larissa.”
Phaer, in the sixteenth century, causes Virgil, in
“ Aineidos,” to say—
“Tn armour iointly ryde, hie shoutes vprise and clustring strakes
They gallop, and vnder their trampling feete the ground with breaking
quakes.”
Dryden renders the passage—
“The neighing coursers answer to the sound
And shake with horny hoofs the solid ground.”
Pliny (Holland), describing a lion hunt, says, “ Then he
{the lion] skuds away, then he runneth amaine for his
life.”
Lucan (Rowe),—
“The fliers now a doubtful flight maintain
While the fleet horse in squadrons scour the plain.”
Plutarch (North): “Hannibal... commanded the
horsemen . . . to scurry to the trenches.”
Tacitus (Murphy) speaks of “a Numidian horseman,
posting at full speed.”
The translators of these books used, of course, the
phraseology that occurred to them as best indicating the,
perhaps indefinite, motion expressed by the authors.
Coming to a more recent period, it is interesting to
cal
note the different words and expressions used by English
IN MOTION.
authors during the last few centuries to denote extreme
speed.
In a thirteenth-century manuscript, “ Amis and Ami-
| loun,” of the Auchinlech Collections—
“On palfray, and on stede
He pryked both nyght and day
Till he come to his contray,
There he was lord in dede.”
Pricking was by early English writers used as synony-
mous with rapid speed.
Chaucer constantly makes use of the term. In “The
Tale of Sir Thopas,” Fyt I.—
“« , . . priked as he were wood ;
His faire steede in his prikynge
So swette, that men might him wrynge
His sydes were al blood.”
In the fourteenth century “walop” was occasionally
used. In the reproduction of the manuscripts of “ Morte
Arthure,” by the Early English Text Society, occurs—
‘«Swerdes swangene in two sweltand knyghtez
Lyes wyde opyne welterande one walopande stedez ;”
and by the same society, in the ‘‘ Romance of William of
Palerne,” of date 1350—
“ Or he wiste, he was war of the white beres
Thei went a-wai a wallop as thei wod [mad] semed.”
In “Merlin,” an anonymous manuscript of 1450,
appears—
“Than the Kynge rode formest hym-self a grete walop.”
! }
VA
me 3 VA
| THE GALLOP. 167 {| a
1h
In English literature the earliest known use of the blood, as threatened a drowning life, we galloped toward °
word “gallop” occurs in an anonymous manuscript of them to part them.” |
the fifteenth century—‘ King Alisaunder ”—deposited in Shakespeare repeatedly uses “gallop” and “ galloping.”
the Bodleian Library— In Macbeth, iv. 1, for example— Ve
; : : “T did he H/o
“Knyghtis wollith on huntyng ride ; as ' ; : I did ae | |
The deor galopith by wodis side. The galloping of horse : who was ’t came by? | J
He that can his time abyde, | a
| At his wille him schal bytyde.” and frequently as a metaphor, as in 72%¢ws Andronicus, ii. 1— | |
. 2 E ewe cies ** As when the sun salutes the morn, |
It is singular that this primitive use of the word And, having gilt the ocean with its beams, iN
should refer to the vo/a-gallop of the deer. Gallops the zodiac in its glistening coach,
Gower, in “ Confessio Amantis,” has— And overlooks the highest peering hills. |
“This knight after the kynges wille Among other words used by Shakespeare to denote the Hh
With spore made his hors to ig 3 : ; ole a ii
| Sporemade his\Hors: te. Boney extreme speed of an animal are, “runs,” “spurs,” “ spur- We!
And to the toune he came anone. 0 ” P ” Fx) : oF Mi
post,” “high-speed,” “skirre,” “helter-skelter,” “ flying, | |
ince ; i . etc. 11H he
In “Froissart’s Cronycle,’ translated by Berners, 5 : bo parc i ae
= : ; Beaumont and Fletcher, in “ Knight of the Burning
fifteenth-sixteenth century, we find— | ee 7 a a i ; 3 We
: Pestle,” use “ galloped amain.
k= J
“¢Styll he goloped forth right, tyll he came into Arthoyes.” | In “ Don Ouixote, ’ Part I]. xxi., Cervantes, according |
~ al ” \}
to Skelton, speaks of “large carreere. Witt
Spenser, in the “Faerie Quene,” used “prick” and Dryden, in “ Palamon and Arcite”— 1
“ gallop ” indifferently — es ||
: “||. spurred his fiery steed Hii
“So as they traveild, lo! they gan espy With goring rowels to provoke his speed.” |
An armed knight towards them gallop fast.” |
“... And as they forward went, Butler, “ Hudibras,” Part I. canto ii.—
They spied a knight faire pricking on the plaine.” |
. ) then plyid
a rae A ; Bilc;; With iron heel his courser’s side
Sir Philip Sidney, in “ Arcadia,” uses “gallop” exclu- :
Conveying sympathetic speed {
sively as indicative of speed: ‘Seeing such streams of From heel of Knight to heel of steed.” 1
168 ANIMALS
Addison, Spectator, 56, “‘saw . a milk-white steed
full stretch.”
Le Sage (Smollett) says Gil Blas went off “at a
round gallop.”
Sterne, in “Tristam Shandy,” takes ‘‘a good rattling
gallop.”
the “Castle of Canto II.
Thomson, in Indolence,”
Wik
“ Pricked through the forest to dislodge his prey.”
Scott, “Marmion,” Canto I. iii.—
“A horseman darting from the crowd ; ”
and in the same poem, Canto V. ix.—
«| | . straining on the tighten’d rein
Scours doubly swift o’er hill and plain ;”
also VI. xv.—
“The steed along the drawbridge flies.”
Among other words and expressions used by Scott as
indicative of extreme speed are, “ rode amain,” “ rushed,”
“plunged,” “headlong course,” “ pricked,” “spurred fast,”
“full gallop,” “ bolted,”
«“ shot ahead,” “sweep,” and so forth.
Wordsworth, Prelude X.—
“full career,’ “speedy gallop,”
«| beat with thundering hoofs the level sand.”
IN MOTION.
In “ Christabel,” Coleridge’s—
“ . . palfrey was as fleet as wind,
. they spurred amain.”
Byron’s wolf in ‘“‘ Mazeppa,” Xil., had a “long gallop.”
In “The Giaour,” he asks—
“Who thundering comes on blackest steed,
With slacken’d bit and hoof of speed?”
and in “Lara,” Canto Il. xxiv.—
“And instant spurr’d him into panting speed.”
In the “Nurse’s Story,” ‘Ingoldsby Legends ”—
“A queer-looking horseman . . . puts spurs to his hack, makes a
dash through the crowd, and is off in a crack.”
Combe, in “Dr. Syntax,” has—
“The jockies whipped ;. the horses ran.”
Sheridan, in “A Trip to Scarborough,” speaks of
“a running horse.”
Matthew Arnold, in “Balder Dead,” describes how
“Odin gallop’d... like a whirlwind.”
In “How they brought the Good News from Ghent
to Aix,” Browning, in eight lines of the poem, uses
“gallop” ten times. It is possible the poet could have
explained his reason for so doing.
WIE (GAUILIL ONE? 169 my
1
Macaulay, in “ Battle of the Lake Regillus,” xxv., sends— In “The Revolt of Islam,” by Shelley— Wie
| |
“, . . Black Auster 4
Like an arrow from the bow ;” “. ,. with reinless speed te
A black Tartarian horse of giant frame Hi
|
”
and in the same poem (iii. )— Comes tramping |
Dara \])
**. , . wolves came with fierce gallop.” 1 || ea
SOME PHASES IN THE GALLOP OF THE HORSE.
|
||
a = _ ee —=
Wiel la, GIN IL ALO. Mia
s
29 cM eet nme
Copyright, iy Badu ; > SERIES 46.
TRANSVERSE-GALLOP. 14
ONE STRIDE IN TWENTY-ONE PHASES. |
Thorough-bred [Horse ‘ Bouquet.” 4 ee
APPROXIMATE MEASUREMENTS.
|
Foot-impacts : |
A es Fo >) 20 se : : ; ss Neeee ase er tee ee ; ea i|
; a . Yotal length of stride, | |
78 inches. 46 inches. go inches. 60 inches. 274 inches. | i,
1°95 metres. I'I5 metres. 2°25 metres. 1°50 metres. 6°85 metres. j
Time-intervals of phases: *022 second. Distance-intervals : 13% inches. |
Time of stride: *44 second. Strides to a mile: 231, Speed equivalent to a mile in 102 seconds.
Al
, by Eadweard Muybrid.
TRANSVERSE-GALLOP.
Some consecutive phases of a representative stride by a thorough-bred horse while galloping at a speed of a mile in 102 seconds, or about 35
173
miles an hour.
| TW ISLIB (GIN IE VEO) 12
Le seoncais
7, by Eadweard Muybridge. a SERIES 47.
TRANSVERSE-GALLOP.
ONE STRIDE.
Thorough-bred Mare ‘* Annie.”
Copyright, 1
APPROXIMATE MEASUREMENTS.
Foot-impacts :
ath of Stride.
88 inches. O inches. 84 inches. 60 inches. inches.
4 4 F
2°20 metres. I‘0O metre. 2°10 metres. 1°55 metres. 6°85 metres.
55 5
Time-intervals : *031 second. Time of stride: *46 second. Strides to a mile: 233. Speed equivalent to a mile in 107 seconds.
3 4 33 P
175
Aah (GUA Ie IO) 1,
SNS 3 ze
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.| SERIES! 48:
TRANSVERSE-GALLOP.
AN INCOMPLETE STRIDE, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM Two PorNTs oF VIEW. |
Thoroush-bred Horse * Bouquet.”
APPROXIMATE MEASUREMEN
Foot-impacts :
Oiscesicsssesnsceespezsestense—s St N 25295 eee eee ee (NESE TSS Rea : E eo. - 3)
é - ye : Total length of |
56 inches. 46 inches. 86 inches. 36 inches. 224 inch
1°40 metres, 1°15 metres 2°15 metres. “90 metre. 5°60 metres.
Time-intervals: *044 second.
177
bo
A
: POE = “tas ” = foie, 2 Ties
Walle, GAILILOW,
SERIES 49.
TRANSVERSE-GALLOP.
AN INCOMPLETE STRIDE, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM Two POINTS OF VIEW.
Thorough-bred Horse ‘* Bouquet.’
APPROXIMATE MEASUREMENTS,
Foot-impacts :
aS s = a O 5 eo. . career Bearer 2 2 baer A o cenceeeees
Total length of Stride.
60 inches. 34 inches. 86 inches. 50 inches. 230 inches.
1°40 metres. “$5 metre. 2°15 metres. 1°25 metres, 5°75 metres.
Time-intervals: *037 second.
f |
Wishes GA Ie k,© 1,
ht, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.| ——— SERIES 50.
TRANSVERSE-GALLOP. 1
ONE STRIDE, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM Two PoINTs oF VIEW.
Mare ‘‘ Pandora.”
Copy
Time-interval ; ‘042 second. iad
{
|
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge. <—KE Sets 51. Ih
TRANSVERSE-GALLOP. - eM!
One STRIDE IN EIGHT PHASES, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM Two Points or VIEW. {|
Horse ‘* Hansel.” i I !
Time-intervals: ‘o95 second.
181 {
|
i
‘2
1g
ee vo ; — See Z. ; : = i)
Wise Gail L,@)!P
—_— SERIES 52.
TRANSVERSE-GALLOP.
ONE STRIDE.
The Buffalo, or Bison.
Time-intervals ; ‘029 second.
183
Wishis, CG AIL IL© 12.
—_———> ERIES 53.
TRANSVERSE-GALLOP.
ONE STRIDE IN SIXTEEN PHASES,
The Goat.
Length of stride: 68 inches (1°70 metres). Time-intervals : ‘029 second. Approximate time of stride: “43 second.
a iS a hw
Wishis, GA ILIL, Oe,
Raduecard Muybridge. Sons Sapna oe
Copy
TRANSVERSE-GALLOP,
ONE STRIDE IN EIGHTEEN PHASES.
The Bactrian Camel.
Length of stride: 140 inches (3°50 metres). Time-intervals : ‘032 second. Approximate time of stride: *51 second.
187
Tish GaN IL IL ONP.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.| Cees
TRANSVERSE-GALLOP.
AN IRREGULAR STRIDE IN NINE PHASEs.
The Cat.
Time-intervals : *035 second.
Copyri
_— SERIES 56.
ROTATORY-GALLOP.
ONE STRIDE IN SIX PHASES.
The Dog (racing hound).
Height, shoulder to ground: 16 inches (“40 metre). Length of stride: 114 inches (2°85 metres).
Time-intervals ; *049 second. Approximate time of stride: ‘25 second, equivalent to a mile in 139 seconds.
189
TUE GAIL IL, ©). HH]
|
|
|
: |
ROTATORY-GALLOP. |
One SrripE, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM Two PoINtTs or VIEW
Dog (Mastiff).
191
7
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybr
ONE STRIDE
IN SIX PHAS
Wishes GAIL ILO,
[Copied from a photo-engra
ROTATORY-GALLOP.
AND AN INCOMPLETE LEAP OF THE FAWN.
A Fallow Deer followed by its young Fawn.
193
SERIES 58.
is)
Qa
THE GA LAL @ 1.
ROTATORY-GALLOP.
ONE STRIDE IN FIFTEEN PHASES
The Wapitt, or Elk.
Length of stride: 172 inches (4°35 metres). Time-intervals : ‘027 second. Approximate time of stride: ‘40 second.
195
nt ee ae Tia. 2 5
_* diwonsll
Wika CG AILILOWP,
ROTATORY-GALLOP.
One SrriDE IN TEN PHASES.
The Fallow Deer.
Time-intervals: *052 second.
197
—
i
q
Wists Gv Ib, Ib, ©) Ie.
ROTATORY-GALLOP.
AN INCOMPLETE STRIDE,
The Antelope.
Length of stride: 72 inches (1*8o metres).
109)
is
Walle C ANIL JL, ON,
|
*
7
|
1}
a!
| {el
i
alll
SAbAycberevemeea sisal
|
|
4
\4
1
i
1
Ki
til
Hy
i
ib
i
we OADM. Civil, |
crip aie : -
}
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] |
i u
He
Wi
| |
Wi)
.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.) |
PHASES IN THE GALLOP OF THE CAT, CAMEL, DOG, RACCOON, WAPITI, BEAR, GOAT, BUFFALO, AND HOG.
: 201 2) |
| |
ti i
Ties GAIL ILO,
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.]
PHASES IN THE GALLOP OF THE DOG, BUFFALO, CAT, GOAT, WAPITI, AND CAMEL.
7? 203
Ht
|
ie
11) eae
1
| i
Wine,
1
i} i
t]
j |
i
1
HAE
TP ible
Ir is a curious fact that no
language has hitherto been
progressive motion adopted
of which the kangaroo is the
one word in the English
by that class of animal,
best known representative.
When we speak of the “walk” or the “gallop” of a
horse we immediately associate with it the precise move-
ment of the animal to which the word refers. The
rapid motion of the wallaby, or the kangaroo, however,
we have been accustomed to recognize only as a series
or a succession of “bounds,” “hops,” “leaps,” “jumps,”
or “skips;” this is the Australian practice of describing
the movement. As no one of the words quoted suggests
of itself the idea of continuous progress, and it being
desirable that this system
some definite name, the
military vocabulary for one.
long been
locomotion should have
author
of
has drawn upon the
The word “ricochet” has
in use by artillerists as a name for the
skipping or bounding action of a projectile over the
surface of the land or the water, and there seems no
good reason why it should not be equally applicable to
the skipping or bounding action of the kangaroo. It is
preferable to employ an already well-recognized word for
a similar movement—although of an inanimate object—
than either to construct a new one, or to continue to
applied to the system of
205
Rene @ CG HE Ir
use the combination of words hitherto necessary for dis-
tinguishing the motion. In this instance it would perhaps
be advisable to Anglicize the word and give it the phonetic
spelling of “ rikosha.”
It is the most simple of all methods of quadrupedal
progress, and may be diagrammatically represented as—
The action of the powerful tail of the kangaroo is
not here recorded. It is, however, an important factor
in its motion, it being brought in contact with the ground
nearly simultaneously with the heel, and then effectively
used to assist in the propulsion through the air.
Series 62 illustrates one stride of the ricochet made
by a large-sized animal; and series 63 the commence-
ment of a stride from a progress on all the four feet ;
to which latter movement it may be convenient, if not
strictly correct, to apply the term “walk.”
THE RICOCIad er,
Copyright,
y Eadweard Muybridge.)
THE COMMENCEMENT OF A STRIDE.
The Kangaroo.
207
Sig males)
No inflexible rule can be laid down as to the details of
a leap by any animal. The gathering together of the
feet, the spring, the clearance of the obstacle, and the
descent are contingent upon such a variety of circum-
stances that no law can be formulated of universal
application. Investigation has proved that the same
horse, with the same rider, jumping the same hurdle,
under the same apparent conditions, will in two suc-
cessive jumps present an entirely different series of
phases. Take, for example, series 64. The last pro-
jecting force is shown in phase 7 to have been made
by @,; but, contrary to the usual practice, the first
contact in the descent is made on the lateral fore, which
is also the last anterior to leave the ground in the pre-
paration for the rise.
This peculiarity is repeated in series 65, the last and
first contacts being with the same laterals. In series 66
the final spring is made from O, and the first contact
[ee Ack.
209
with A; in series 67 the last contact is with @, and in
the descent A is the first to touch the ground. In these
two latter seriates we find the general practice of horses
in leaping. The first contact with the ground usually
takes place on the foot diagonal to that which effected
the final projecting force.
Had these four leaps been made by an untrained
animal it might be supposed the irregularities proceeded
from a lack of experience; but Pandora was a mare of
national reputation, and had frequently, with a hundred-
and-eighty-pound man on her back, cleared, without
touching, a stone fence five feet high.
The particular hind-foot with which an animal, when
clearing an obstacle, will give its ultimate propulsion is
a matter of convenience, depending entirely upon the
relative positions of the feet when the gathering for
the leap, at the calculated distance, is decided on.
Seriates 68 and 69 illustrate parts of two jumps by
2 ip)
210 ANIMALS IN MOTION.
of varying conditions than those which attend a similar
movement by the horse.
The comparative time-intervals of the selected phases
can be ascertained by a reference to their
a good hunting-horse, but of much less capability than
Pandora. They demonstrate the general preparations for
a leap, and the renewal of regular motion after it is
Ol jo; 225
respective numbers.
executed.
The jump of a cat is subject to a far greater number
SOME PHASES IN THE LEAP OF A HORSE.
AD Vel 18, 1G 18, AN
al Eadweard Muybridge.) »>— SERIES 64.
OVER A BAR ONE YARD HIGH.
Mare ‘‘ Pandora.”
Springing from @, landing on a.
202
,
q
ee Se ee ——__—__—____| __ hn
ARTEL IB, JIL IB, Ae
<< SERIES
87, dy Eadweard Muy
OVER A BARITONE YARD HIGH:
PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM Two POINTS OF VIEW.
Mare ‘‘ Pandora.”
Time-intervals ; 1 49 seconds. Springing from @, landing on a.
ie)
Us
Wiel le, I, le AN IP. : ‘|
en 8 37, by Ladweard Muybridge.) S— Spies 66. A
WITHOUT A SADDLE OVER A BAR ONE YARD HIGH. i
Mare ‘‘ Pandora.”
Time-intervals : "60 second. Springing from ©, landing on a.
‘iy
I
|
i
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.] ~ Series 67. ;
WITHOUT A SADDLE OVER A BAR ONE YARD HIGH. i
PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM Two Pornts oF VIEW. f \
Mare ** Pandora.”
Time-intervals :; *120 second. Springing from @, landing on A.
Pils
iy
Wise 1b, AN IP.
0 bridge.) Boy S—> senies 68.
PREPARATIONS AND COMMENCEMENT.
forse “* Daisy,”
Springing from oO.
ony
to
pe
AISLE, IL 1B JAIP.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muyby idge.) Y
CLEARANCE, LANDING, AND RECOVERY.
Horse ** Daisy.”
Springing from @, landing on A.
219
SERIES 69
Copyright, 1387, by Eadweard Muybridge)
LATERAL PHASES OF SOME LEAPS.
Mare *‘ Pandora.”
221
A WSLS, JL 18, AN IP
poe es
:
|
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.]
FORE-SHORTENED PHASES OF SOME LEAPS.
Mare ‘* Pandora.”
Wisli8, 1b1e AVIP.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.|
A CAT FRIGHTENED WHILE TROTTING.
Selected phases from a series of which the time-intervals were recorded *035 second,
22
See a WC Kee VAUNi eet rE Se ke
Iv being difficult to obtain a horse who was sufficiently
amenable to discipline as to buck and kick at the word
of command, resort was had to a circus mule, who had
undergone a regular course of instruction in those accom-
plishments. Seriates 70 and 71 represent two different
actions, arranged on one page to facilitate comparison.
The first two lines give a very fair illustration of a buck,
| followed by a one-legged kick; the following two lines
admirably realize the caprices of a high-kicker. Phase 4
of the second series very faithfully reproduces in life a
carved slab of a wild ass in the Assyrian department of
the British Museum.
to
iS)
N
Wiss BUCK AIN ID) Wists IK ING IK,
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.]
S— SC Senies 71.
BUCKING AND KICKING.
Mule ‘* Ruth.”
Time-intervals of upper two lines: ‘og1 second. Time-intervals of lower two lines: ‘065 second.
i
TRE BuUCIk ANID Wishes IR WCIS.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.|
SOME PHASES OF BUCKING AND KICKING.
Mile “ Ruth.”
ar
Cha ING EO GA I
Tue precise methods by which changes from the walk
to the trot, or from the trot to the gallop, are effected,
have always been disputable subjects. The former change
is demonstrated in series 72, the latter in series 73. In
each of these the horses were dragging a racing sulky,
which has been obliterated to facilitate examination; with
the same object in view dots have been made in proximity
to the right pasterns.
Series 74 is a change from the rack to the gallop,
75 illustrates some phases attained by a thorough-bred
2
Os
(ae)
Kentucky mare, after landing from a jump of twenty-six
feet three inches, by actual measurement, over a bar one
and a half yards high. Phases 23 and 24 are interesting,
and suggest the Byzantine treatment of the gallop.
All of these changes were accidental, and therefore
perfectly natural; 72, 73, and 75 have been filled in
to make them more distinct for study, the exact outlines
having been carefully followed. Series 74 remains in the
precise condition of the original negative, with all its faults.
These four seriates were photographed in 1870.
I gra 9
to
a0
epee... 2 Ty wae = = SIE yg 2 We ee
CHANGE OF GAIT. 9
——> SERIES 73
CHANGE FROM A TROT TO A GALLOP. |
ral
it
mall
SERIES 75
Copyright, 1881, by Eadweard Muybridge.| Sy Sentes 74, RECOVERY AFTER A LEAP OF EIGHT AND THREE-QUARTER YARDS
CHANGE FROM A RACK TO A GALLOP. IN LENGTH OVER A BAR ONE AND A HALF YARDS HIGH.
Photographed at Palo Alto 1879.
The right feet of the horses are indicated by dots near the pasterns.
235
—
LADS I ER I Hi
Pe te
u!
‘4
Den ieck Je 'GaEiae
OF ERS:
PIGEONS.
Photographed at Palo Alto, 1879.
Tue subjects of flight and soaring present so many intricate
problems that the author is reluctantly compelled to
relinquish his attempt to elucidate them. His investi-
gation, however, brought to light some facts which, although
they had been theorized upon, had never been proved. |
2
A
Pe)
it
Phases 5, 6, 7, 16, 17, and 18 of the cockatoo, series 79, de-
monstrate that the primary feathers of a bird’s wing, although
interlocked in the downward stroke, are separated, and
their thin edges turned in the direction of their movement
during the recovery. This partial revolution of the primary
f
5
238 ANIMALS
feathers is also distinctly seen in the pigeon, seriates 76
and 77; the cockatoo during a second flight, series 80;
the vulture, series 78; and it probably occurs in the flight
of all birds, large or small. The dissection of a crane,
made at the author's request, proved the combined move-
IN
MOTION.
ment of the primary feathers to be under the control of
the bird, and independent of any motion of the wing itself.
Whether the act of soaring is accomplished by some,
hitherto imperceptible, motion of the primary feathers may
perhaps engage the attention of future investigators.
eo
THE PLIGHT Ole RIIRIDS. q
4
i
D
}
|. 2 = a = wast — => SSR ates = & rt 2
by Eadweard 1 —< scenes 76 |
ONE FLAP OF THE WINGS IN SEVEN PHASES. 5
PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM Two PoINTs OF VIEW. ;
‘
Homing Pigeon.
‘
Time-intervals : "019 second.
F |
q
AN
No}
Wise, TIL WG IE OI BIR IDS.
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.]
ONE FLAP OF THE WINGS IN SEVEN PHASES.
PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM Two POINTS OF ViI Ww.
acne.
Homing Pizeon.
Time-intervals: ‘020 second.
241
No
417
Wie IILINGIR A OE 1s IR IDS. if
| |
i
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.) SP—> sens 78.
ONE FLAP OF THE WINGS IN FIFTEEN PHASES.
Vulture.
Time-intervals: ‘O19 second.
243
i.
a
it Mere rie Of Ee TRIOS. {
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.)
TWO FLAPS OF THE WINGS.
The Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo. }
Time-intervals : ‘or7 second.
3
|
iF!
4
ie
nt
Tish LNG Ol BIR IDS. ie
36 Oc
oe
22
oe}
ee
ood
Be
ae
30
+34
0
are
td
oc
ae
2
a
Be SER.
3
se
ee
bet
hie
ie
|
Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge.] »—> CS zr
AN IRREGULAR FLAP OF THE WINGS IN TWELVE PHASES, {
The Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo.
if
Time-intervals : ‘o28 second.
247
81.
SERIES
0,
hal
second.
PRIOR TO ALIGHTING
‘O16
Crested Cc
Sulphur
intervals
The :
Time-
n
a
4
sa
fy
Oo
=
ly
oO
=
fz,
Ga}
aE;
iS
ONE SEAPSOF THE WINGS;
Copyright, «
887, by Eadweard Muybridge.)
Wise TIL WGI OF BIUIRIDS.
SiO Mie PAS ESN ihe ris |Giias Ok ANCOICKAT OO:
251
Copyright,
a
Eadweard Muybridge.)
Wish le WIL Gat Te AGN) ID) WAN IL IS
SOME PHASES IN THE FLIGHT OF
SOME PHASES IN THE WALK OF A
213)
QF ley It IN ID)S.
A COCKATOO,
N ADJUTANT.
TRA
TAO, FILSON Gel WIN QF 1B IIR ID)S)-
yeard Muy: ] SERIES 82.
WING MOVEMENTS WHILE RUNNING.
A HALF-STRIDE IN E1GuT PHASES, PHOTOGRAPHED SYNCHRONOUSLY FROM Two PoINTs OF VIEW.
The Ostrich.
255
RECORDS OF MOVEMENTS FROM OBSERVATION,
++
Tue illustrations in this work include representatives of all
the animals, the movements of which were photographically
investigated by the writer.
The analyses of these movements being demonstrated
facts, are not open to controversy. It would have been
desirable, however, to have photographed many of the
animals while they were enjoying more freedom of move-
ment than that afforded by the gardens of a Zoological
Society, but the difficulties attending a satisfactory investi-
gation under their natural conditions of life were, at the
time, too great to be surmounted,
It may, therefore, be desirable to include a few quota-
tions from some well-known naturalists who have had
the opportunity of observing the movements of wild
animals in their natural haunts,
Tue Exvepwant. Sir Samuel W. Baker, in “ Wild
Beests and their Ways,” chap. ii, says—
f coasider that the African elephant is capable of a speed of fifteen
ics at. hour, which it could keen p for two or three hundred yards,
2° ¢ which it would travel ut a f ten miles an hour, and actually
vccomplish the distance wituin t° yeriod. The Asiatic elephant might
likewise attain a speed of fifteen miles for perhaps a couple of hundred
yards, but it would not travel far at a greater pace than eight miles
an hour.”
(Chap. iii.) “Although an elephant is capable of great speed it
cannot jump, neither can it lift all four legs off the ground at the
same time; this peculiarity renders it impossible to cross any ditch with
hard perpendicular sides that will not crumble or yield to pressure, if
such a ditch should be wider than the limit of the animal’s extreme
pace. If the limit of a pace should be 6 feet, a 7-foot ditch would
effectually stop an elephant.”
It has already been suggested that the elephant has
two gaits only, the walk and the amble. Baker's experi-
ences confirm the opinion that the animal is incapable
either of trotting, racking, cantering, or galloping. The
correctness of Sir Samuel’s observations have been
endorsed, in a letter to the writer, by Mr. Frederick
C. Selous.
Tue Rautwoceros.
Baker writes—
In the same work, chap. xvi.,
“When the vast bulk of a rhinoceros is considered, it is astonishing
to see the speed that this heavy animal can attain, and continue for
a great distance. I have hunted them in company with the Arabs,
A) IE
}
;
;
258 ANIMALS
and for at least 2 miles our horses have been doing their best, keeping
a position within 5 or 6 yards of the hind quarters, but, nevertheless,
unable to overtake them before they reached an impenetrable jungle. It
is the peculiar formation of the hind legs which enables the rhinoceros
to attain this speed ; the length from the thigh to the hock is so great
that it affords immense springing capacity, and the animal bounds along
the surface like a horse in full gallop, without the slightest appearance
of weight or clumsiness.”
Of the same animal, Selous, in “ Travel and Adventure
in South-East Africa,” chap. xxv., says
“A black rhinoceros trotted out into the open, having no doubt got
my wind as I passed. . . . He had broken from a trot into a gallop
before I fired; but on receiving the shot went a good deal faster, at
the same time snorting violently. ... A black rhinoceros can gallop
at an extraordinary pace for so heavy a beast ; indeed, it is just as much
as a good horse can do to overtake one, so that as I ranged alongside,
my horse, a powerful stallion, was going at his utmost speed.”
Baker and Selous are probably the two best authorities
on the actions of African wild beasts in their native haunts,
and they agree in their observations of the extraordinary
speed the rhinoceros is capable of attaining, rivalling,
apparently, the fastest motion of an elephant. dliire
description of the fast gait of the animal by these cele-
brated hunters does not correspond with that of the amble ;
Baker compares it to the “full gallop” of a horse, and
Selous says it broke “ from a trot into a gallop.”
Neither of these keen observers would be likely to
mistake the motion of the gallop or the canter for the
more steady and uniform progress of an animal when
trotting or ambling.
IN MOTION.
It is very desirable that some African explorer should
succeed in obtaining photographs of the rhinoceros under
full speed, as, like the hippopotamus, it will perhaps in a
few more years be exterminated. A single lateral exposure
will, under favourable conditions, be quite sufficient to
determine the character of the movement.
Tue Hrerororamus. The walk of the hippopotamus,
according to the observation of the writer, conforms to
the law governing that of purely terrestrial vertebrates.
In “Wild Beasts and their Ways,” chap. xii, Baker gives
an interesting account of the speed of the animal when
entirely submerged—
“\ hippopotamus can move at a considerable pace along a river’s
bed. We had proof of this while running down the Bahr Giraffe with
the steamer, the speed with the stream being about ro knots an hour. .. .
It was some time before we actually gained upon it, but when the
engineer put on full steam, there could be no doubt of our superiority
in speed.”
While under water it is probable that the hippopotamus
can trot, and with a long stride make considerable progress
along the bed of the river without the actual support of
its legs. On dry land it is hardly probable that its fastest
gait can be other than the amble ; possibly a trot, but
with a very brief period, if any, of non-support.
Tur Grrarre. Unfortunately no giraffe was available
for the writer's investigation. Selous, in “Travels and
Adventures in Africa,’ chap. xxvi., says—
I
OE —
‘
RECORDS OF MOVEMENTS FROM OBSERVATION. 259
“There were sixteen of these stately beasts in all, and a grand sight
it was to view so many of them together. They... allowed us to
approach to within two hundred yards of them before starting off at
their peculiar gallop. (N.B.—Giraffes never trot, as they are so often
represented to do in drawings. They have but two paces, a walk and
a gallop or canter, and break at once from one into the other).”
In his interesting book, Selous has a picture of a giraffe
walking; the animal is supported on the left laterals, the
right hind-foot is approaching the place from which, in
close proximity thereto, the fore-foot has just been lifted
—a phase somewhat like 11 of the camel, series 13; or
4 of the horse, series 3. The same characteristic has
been observed by the writer in the walk of a giraffe.
Baker, in “ Albert Nyanza Great Basin of the Nile,”
chap. viii., describing a giraffe hunt, says—
“A good horse is required, as, although the gait of a giraffe appears
excessively awkward from the fact of his moving the fore and hind legs
of one side simultaneously, he attains a great pace, owing to the length
of his stride, and his bounding trot is more than a match for any but
a superior horse.”
In the same book is a picture of Sir Samuel himself
pursuing a herd of giraffes; the animals are represented
as racking, the phase selected being similar to 7 of
series 42.
In “Wild Beasts and their Ways,” chap. xix., Baker
again alludes to the fast pace of a giraffe—
oT
Tt moves like a camel, both legs upon the same side simultaneously.
The long neck swings ungracefully when the animal is in rapid motion,
and the clumsy half-canter produces the appearance of lameness.”
eS a ee.
The writer is inclined to believe that, when hard
pressed, the rack of the giraffe, like that of the camel,
will be exchanged for the transverse-gallop.
Tue Kancaroo. Mr. W. Saville Kent, in his valu-
able work “The Naturalist in Australia,” says of this
animal —
“All the Macropodide are distinguished by the preponderating length
of their hinder limbs, upon which alone they progress under any stimulus
to rapid movement, by a characteristic series of leaps and bounds.”
To this method of progress, it will have been seen, the
writer has applied the name of “ ricochet.”
Reptites. The motion of reptiles was not included
in the photographic researches of the writer, but a few
remarks founded on his observation of the use they make
of their limbs may not be irrelevant.
An alligator, during an ordinarily slow walk on dry
land, will move his feet in the same consecutive order,
and with the same alternations of support, as a horse
grazing in the fields. An acceleration of this pace results
in the diagonal legs moving in pairs, much in the same
order as those of a horse while trotting; whether, during
a more rapid motion, the body of an alligator is unsup-
ported for any portion of its stride was not determined,
from inability to obtain a faster speed with the reptile
experimented with.
The movements of the crocodiles, the lizards, and
other reptiles of the same general formation, probably
0S la eae
260 ANIMALS
correspond with those of the alligator. The chameleon
was carefully observed while walking on the ground, and
while climbing the branch of a shrub. In both instances
the movement of the limbs corresponded with the slow
walk of an alligator.
The walk of the Gallapagos turtle and of the common
garden tortoise, disclosed the fact of their bodies being
supported on a pair of diagonals, alternately with three
feet; the succession of foot-fallings conformed to the
general law governing the same movement in other
vertebrates.
In the “ Naturalist in Australia,’ Kent gives a most
interesting description of the peculiar motions of the
chlamydosaurus, or the frilled-lizard. The Roebuck Bay
specimens brought to England by him—
. were in vigorous health, and at the first trial when set at liberty,
ran along almost perfectly erect with both their fore limbs and _ tail
elevated clear of the ground.
‘The distance the chlamydosaurus will traverse in this remarkably
erect position may average as much as 4o or 50 feet at a stretch; when,
after resting momentarily on its haunches, it starts off again. When,
however, a short stretch of a few yards only has to be covered, the
animal runs on all fours. . . . Professor Huxley had no hesitation in
assigning to this type an erect bipedal method of locomotion.”
Tue Fuicur AND Soartnc or Birps. The attention
of the writer was first directed to the soaring of birds
during a southern tour of the United States early in the
fifties, when he watched a buzzard wheeling around, at
various elevations, for the space of an hour, without the
slightest apparent effort of motion.
IN MOTION.
He once startled an eagle from a peak of the Sierra
Nevada mountains; the bird gave two or three flaps of
its wings, and without any further visible exertion, soared
across the Yosemite Valley, and landed on another peak
of the range, not less than three miles distant. The time
was early in the morning, when there was not enough
| wind to extinguish a match struck in the open air; yet
| the time in which the bird traversed this distance was not
more than a few minutes.
In “A Naturalists Voyage,” chap. ix., Darwin gives
an interesting description of the soaring of the condor—
“When the condors are wheeling in a flock round and round any
spot, their flight is beautiful. Except when rising from the ground, I do
| not recollect ever having seen one of these birds flap its wings. Near
ima I watched several for nearly half-an-hour, without once taking off
my eyes; they moved in large curves, sweeping in circles, descending
and ascending without giving a single flap. As they glided close to my
head I intently watched, from an oblique position, the outlines of the
| separate and great terminal feathers of each wing, and these separate
feathers, if there had been the least vibratory movement, would have
appeared as if blended together; but they were seen distinct against the
blue sky. The head and neck were moved frequently, and apparently
with force, and the extended wings seemed to form the fulcrum on which
the movements of the neck, body, and tail acted. If the bird wished
| to descend, the wings were for a moment collapsed; and when again
expanded with an altered inclination the momentum gained by the rapid
descent seemed to urge the body upwards with the even and steady
movement of a paper kite. In the case o£
ny bird soaring, its motion
must be sufficiently rapid, so that the acti6n of the inclined surface of
its body on the atmosphere may counterbalance its gravity. The force
to keep up the momentum of a body moving in a horizontal plane in
the air (in which there is so little friction) cannot be great, and this force
RECORDS OF MOVEMENTS FROM OBSERVATION. 261
is all that is wanted. The movement of the neck and body of the condor,
we must suppose, is sufficient for this. However this may be, it is truly
wonderful and beautiful to see so great a bird, hour after hour, without
any apparent exertion, wheeling and gliding over mountain and river.”
The writer has frequently, while crossing the Atlantic,
carefully watched with a powerful binocular glass, the
motion of gulls while soaring quite close to and around
the stern of a steamer, but notwithstanding the failure of
his efforts, and those of others, to detect any motion in
the primary feathers of the wings, he ventures the opinion
that the power possessed by a bird of causing them to
make a partial revolution, independently of any action
of the wing itself, must be considered as a necessary factor
in a solution of the problem of soaring.
— SS ED RS Sere eee
os
PNP Se EIN OSs
In the Introduction, reference was made to the elaborate
book on Horsemanship by the Marquis of Newcastle,
originally published in the French language at Antwerp,
1658. The following extracts are taken from the Preface
of the English edition of the work, published at London,
1743 -—_
“T might make an Article here regarding the Stile in which this Book
is writ: But I think it sufficient to observe to my Readers, that I neither
write as a Wit myself, nor for a Gentleman of Wit. Educated in the
Stable, in the Stud in the Manage, in the midst of Horses in the Army,
I have never been a Member of the French Academy. I write for
those who, like myself, make it their Profession to be among Horses;
it is enough that I make myself understood by them, by a proper Use
of the Terms of Art, in which I presume I have pretty well succeeded.”
A chapter in this book is devoted to ‘“ The Movements
of a Horse in all his Natural Paces,” which are described
as follows :—
“THe WaLk.—A Horse in walking has two of his feet in the air, and
two upon the ground, which move otherways at the same time, one
fore and one hind-foot, which is the movement of a gentle trot.
“Tur TRror.—tThe action of his legs in this movement is two feet in
the air, and two upon the ground, which he moves crossways at the
same time; one fore and one hind-foot across, which is the movement
of the walk: for the movement of a horse’s legs is the same in walking
as in trotting, where he moves them cross-ways, two in the air across,
and two upon the ground at the same time; so that those which were
across in the air at one time, are afterwards in the same situation upon
the ground, and so zice versd. This is the real movement of a horse’s
legs in trotting.
“Tur AMBLE.—A horse in this action moves both legs on the same
side; for example, he moves his two off-legs both before and behind
at the same time, while those of the near side are at a stand; and
when those two which were in motion before touch the ground, he
moves the other side, vz. the fore and hind leg on the near side, and
the off-legs are then at rest. Hence a pacing horse moves both legs
on one side, and changes the side at each motion, having both legs on
the same side in the air, and those of the other side upon the ground
at the same time, which motion is the perfect amble.
“Tur GaLLop.—Galloping is a different movement; for in this pace
a horse can lead with which leg the rider pleases, but the leg on the
same side must follow it; I mean when he gallops directly forward,
and then this is a true gallop. But that the leading of the fore-leg
may be rightly understood, which ought to be followed by the hind-leg
of the same side, the leg moves in the following manner: for example,
if the fore off-leg leads, it consequently follows by such leading, that
the same fore-leg ought to be before the other fore-leg, and the hind-
leg on the same side ought to follow, which hind-leg ought to be
before the other hind-leg, which is the right gallop.
“But in order to understand it the better, the motion in galloping is in
this manner: the horse raises his two fore-legs at the same time in the
action I have described, which is one leg before the other, and when
his fore-legs come down, before they touch the ground, they are imme-
diately followed by those behind; so that, as I have said before, they
are all in the air at the same time: for his hind-legs begin to move when
the fore-legs begin to fall, by which the whole horse is entirely in the air.
How would it otherwise be possible, that a horse in running should leap
twice his length, if the motion of the gallop was not a leap forwards ?
2
This description is very just both with respect to the motion and posture
of a horse’s legs in galloping, which, though it be true is not easily
perceived in a gentle gallop, but very visible in a swift one, where the
motion is violent; I say, his four legs may then plainly appear to be in
the air at the same time, running being no more than a quick gallop, the
motion and posture of a horse’s legs being entirely the same.
“ RUNNING.—The motion of a horse and the action of his legs are the
same in running as in galloping, the different velocity of the motion only
excepted; so that running may be properly called a swift gallop, and
a gallop a slow running. This is the true movement in running. The
trot is the foundation of a gallop; and the reason is, because the trot being
crossways, and a gallop both legs on the same side, if you put a horse
upon a trot beyond the speed of that pace, he is obliged when his off fore-
leg is lifted up, to set down his near hind-leg so quickly, that it makes
264 APPENDIX.
the hind-leg follow the fore-leg on the same side, which is a real gallop ;
and for this reason a trot is the foundation of a gallop.
“A gallop is the foundation of the Terre-d-terre, the motion of the
horse’s legs being the same. He leads with the fore-leg within the Volte,
and the hind-leg on the same side follows. You keep him only a little
more in hand in Terre-d-terre, that he may keep his time more regularly.
‘“‘T could wish that Pacing was excluded from the Manage, that action
being only mixed and confused, by which a horse moves both legs on the
same side, and shifts them each movement ; and this is as directly contrary
to the Manage as is possible, if, from an Amble you would put a horse to
a gallop; for when he is upon a trot you may push him to a gallop, but
being upon the amble you must stop him upon the hand before he can
.
gallop.”
~
Sirah: eae
A HORSE RE, RING.
Photograp. d at Pato
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES
iD
y Lifts LONDON «
‘Tto, 1876
) BECCLES.